CHEDDAR – Aug 3 – Spark Networks SE became the second largest dating company in North America after closing its deal to acquire Zoosk. Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO of Spark Networks, said: “With the acquisition of Zoosk we became now almost three times bigger than we used to be. So, that unlocked all the potential being really large in this market.”
Category: Zoosk
Dating Industry Executives Discuss Best Practices in Safety
The webinar, "Online Safety in the Dating and Social Entertainment Market", was hosted by Northland Capital Markets. Participating from the dating industry were Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group, Casey Burton, Director and Senior Counsel at Match Group, and Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO of Spark Networks.
Representing the panel from various safety and online standards organizations were Larry Magid, CEO of Connect Safely, Stephen Balkam, CEO and Founder of the Family Online and Safety Institute, and George Kidd, CEO of the Online Dating Association.
"We put safety at the core of everything we do," said Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group. "Our users are here to interact and connect – and we think the goal of a safety operation is to promote a safe environment free of bullying, hate speech, and abuse to encourage making meaningful connections."
Topics covered during the discussion included: the current state of online safety, content moderation and law enforcement, working with the app store partners, how technology can help users feel safer, and strategies for building a safer online community.
While safety will always be a major focus in the dating industry, Larry Magid, CEO of Connect Safely, wanted to set the record straight in two specific areas.
"One observation is that between the early 1990s and the mid-2010s, while Internet usage was on a steep rise, violence, both against children and sexual violence in general, has gone down," said Magid. "So anybody who wants to correlate online dating with increased sexual violence is actually looking at the numbers in exactly the wrong way. So while I can't claim data that shows that online dating has made things safer, I can say that during the period that online dating has risen, violence has gone down."
"The other thing to understand is that nobody can guarantee 100% safety on anything, whether it's food safety or transportation safety, or safety using tools," he added. "Nobody can ever say with absolute certainty that nothing bad is going to happen. What we can do is have best practices in an industry (like online dating) – and we can have consumer education."
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Spark Networks Closes Its $258M Acquisition of Zoosk
TECH CRUNCH – July 2 – Berlin-based Spark Networks, the owner of Christian Mingle, Jdate, LDSsingles, Silver Singles, JSwipe and others, has acquired Zoosk for a combination of cash and stock. The deal values Zoosk at ~$258M. Spark says it will issue 12,980,000 American Depositary Shares (ADS) to former Zoosk shareholders valued at $153M based on the closing price of Spark ADS of $11.78 on June 28, 2019. Zoosk has for a long time struggled to compete against Tinder. A few years ago, the company laid off a third of its staff and even had to call off its IPO. According to data from Sensor Tower, Zoosk has generated worldwide in-app revenue of $250M and has seen 38M downloads since January 2014. In Q1 2019, Zoosk revenue was flat at $13M, the firm also says. Tinder revenue, by comparison, grew 43%. Zoosk's current CEO Steven McArthur is departing Zoosk following the deal, but will join Spark's board of directors.
Spark Nearing Zoosk Close, Sets EBITDA Target
SEEKING ALPHA – June 19 – Spark Networks targets adjusted EBITDA of $50M in 2020. The company says the California Department of Business Oversight granted a permit allowing Spark to issue securities in exchange for the outstanding Zoosk securities. The permit followed a hearing that was the last major milestone in the Zoosk purchase. The acquisition is expected to close on July 1. Spark shares are up 2% to $10.80.
Spark Networks SE Shareholders Approved Increase in Share Capital
PR NEWSWIRE – June 5 – An Extraordinary General Meeting of Spark Networks SE was held on June 3 in Berlin, Germany. Resolutions were passed with 99.9% of the present votes in favor – a resounding endorsement of the acquisition of Zoosk, which upon closing is expected to make Spark the second largest dating company in North America. For the purpose of acquiring Zoosk, the Meeting resolved to issue new shares to Zoosk shareholders in exchange for their Zoosk shares.
‘Twitter’ Tax Break in San Francisco Ends
BLOOMBERG TAX – May 16 – San Francisco's eight-year-old tax break to encourage tech companies to locate in the city – a.k.a the "Twitter tax break" – is ending on May 20th. The tax break saved businesses $70M since San Francisco enacted it. The climate for tax giveways has changed dramatically, with emerging tech companies blamed for everything from rising housing prices to clogged city arteries. Over the last month the average San Francisco home price was $1.4M, up 1.7% from last year. That's nearly double the $665K median sales price in the Q1 of 2012. Online dating company Zoosk took advantage of the break in exchange for providing internships, $10K to a neighborhood nonprofit, and tutoring, in addition to patronizing local restaurants and bars, its agreement said.
Spark Networks to Acquire Zoosk
PR NEWSWIRE – Mar 22 – Spark Networks today announced its entry into a definitive agreement to acquire Zoosk. With the addition of Zoosk, Spark will more than double in size and the combined business will be considerably more valuable than the two stand-alone entities. In 2020, Spark expects Adjusted EBITDA to exceed $50M. Approximately two-thirds of the combined company's revenue will be generated in North America. Spark will acquire 100% of Zoosk's shares with a combination of cash and stock valuing the company at ~$255M based on the closing price of Spark Networks stock on March 20, 2019. The transaction is expected to close early in Q3 2019.
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3 Things You Can Learn From Gen Z About Online Dating
MONEYISH – Sep 30 – Dating app Zoosk recently analyzed ~5.7M profiles and surveyed 4K daters on the site, only to reveal that the youngest generation of daters, Gen Zers (those currently between the ages of about 8 and 22), might have a few lessons to teach the rest of us.
- We should be open to meeting people even if they don't check all our boxes. Indeed, Gen Zers are the least picky daters and swipe or say yes to 33% of the potential matches they're presented, which is 15% more than millennials and 20% more than Gen Xers and baby boomers.
- Anyone can make the first move. The majority, 59% of Gen Zers are indifferent about whether a man or woman makes the first move online, which is 2% more than millennials, 8% more than Gen Xers and 7% more than Baby Boomers.
- Approach dating casually like Gen Z does, so you don't put so much pressure on yourself to make the date perfect. Gen Zers are more likely than other generations to opt for simple coffee dates instead of drinks or dinner, the survey found.
Online Daters Consume More Alcohol, Zoosk Study Finds
ASKMEN – July 19 – Zoosk surveyed 9k of its members and analyzed 133k dating messages to figure out the relationship between alcohol and dating. It found that 72% of the daters on its site consume alcohol compared to 64.8% of the general adult U.S. population, indicating that singles really do drink more than everybody else. It could be due to how common going out for a drink is when you're dating someone. Nearly three in four daters said going out for a drink is a good dating idea. And according to 32% of non-drinkers, dating is tougher when you're sober.
Zoosk To Protect Military Members, Preventing Romance Scams
WARISBORING – May 16 – In 2016, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received ~15k reports of romance scams. According to Zoosk, ~1/4 of profiles that get blocked on suspicion of fraud are attempts at impersonating members of the US Armed Forces so the site is launching a military verification feature, called Insignia, to verify whether or not a user is a member of the US Armed Forces. Zoosk partnered with SheerID, a long-trusted verification company, to provide active duty military and reservists the opportunity to verify that they are legitimate service members.