TECH CRUNCH – July 14 – Match Group has agreed to acquire PlentyOfFish (POF) for $575 million in cash and expects to close early in Q4. Tinder flicked the monetization switch this spring. Singles are a core demographic for marketing other types of self-improvement services where Match/IAC also plays.
"As more people than ever use more dating apps than ever with more frequency than ever, PlentyOfFish’s addition both brings new members into our family of products and deepens the lifetime relationship we have with our users across our portfolio," said Sam Yagan, CEO of The Match Group. "I look forward to working closely with Markus and extending the company’s impressive growth trajectory." The acquisition adds 3 million daily actives to IAC’s digital media portfolio of more than 150 brands and 20 operating businesses. Match Group covers ~50 brands in the dating, education and fitness space. IAC reports 370 million unique monthly users and 2.5 billion monthly visits to its entire portfolio.
by Natasha Lomas
See full article at Tech Crunch
Mark Brooks: Recently Markus said he was at a $100 million revenue run rate. Match bought Singlesnet, OKCupid, then Datehookup. So the writing has been on the wall for some time. It was just a matter of price. Tinder showed that Match Group could seed and grow a credible threat to the POF business. It's a good time for Markus to join with Match Group, and cash in his chips.
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TECH CRUNCH – Aug 25 – The 6 month old app is now reporting nearly 100,000 users across the U.S., who have racked up some 750,000 matches within the app thus far, up from 450,000 mutual matches back in March. The Friendsy team has now pulled in a seed funding round coming from Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Slow Ventures. The new financing expands the $200,000+ they had already raised from the same investors, as well as from Princeton University. The seed financing will be used to prep for a big back to school push this fall. Friendsy has built up a network of 100 campus representatives at this stage, to help spread the word about the app.
