Acquisitions

Match Group has agreed to pay $441 million in a settlement with some of Tinder’s former employees, shutting down the lengthy trial before closing arguments, according to Reuters.

The plaintiffs included Tinder co-founder Sean Rad among other former employees, and the trial got heated between Rad and former IAC CEO Barry Dillard. Prior to the trial, emails from former Match Group CEO Gregg Blatt were released to the public, showing that he tried to woo talented people into key roles at the company with a higher stock valuation compared to what he told the Tinder employees who had options to exercise.

According to The Daily Mail, emails revealed that Blatt valued the dating app at nearly $12 billion in 2016, more than a year before Match Group valued Tinder at only $3 billion as Sean Rad and other employees were forced to exit the company. Rad and the other plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit claim Blatt purposefully devalued the stock in their negotiations, citing the emails as evidence. 

ParshipMeet Group, parent company for popular dating apps like eHarmony, MeetMe and Skout, has started preparations for its initial public offering, notably on the heels of Bumble going public earlier this year.

According to Reuters, ParshipMeet Group’s IPO is scheduled for the first half of 2022, but there is some speculation that it may be pushed back in light of Bumble’s falling stock price in recent weeks. ParshipMeet is estimated to be worth upward of $4.1 billion, based on its core earnings, and the company reported revenues of 280 million euros for the first half of the year, up 19 percent.

ParshipMeet is 43 percent owned by General Atlantic and 53 percent by German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 Media. These co-owners have begun to invite banks to help organize the initial public offering, but the company has not confirmed who they have invited or begun working with.

Dating app conglomerate Match Group announced that it will launch new audio and video chat features to its suite of dating apps over the next two years. The company shared this news on its second quarter earnings call with investors.

The company plans to debut a new audio chat feature and group video chat, along with other “livestreaming technologies” across its apps, according to Tech Crunch. The rollouts will happen over the next 12 to 24 months, with two of their dating apps debuting it before the end of this year, followed by more rollouts in 2022.

Adding new livestream and chat features are the result of the company’s pricey acquisition of social discovery platform Hyperconnect (the acquisition’s officially closed in mid-June). Match Group owns a series of popular dating apps including Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid and Plenty of Fish among others, and has said that the future of dating apps will likely resemble social platforms, with livestreaming and video being at the forefront.

Tinder was testing a group video chat feature before its parent company Match Group struck an acquisition deal for South Korea social discovery company Hyperconnect.

The new feature was called Tinder Mixer and was being tested in New Zealand before it was scrapped, according to Tech Crunch. Tinder Mixer allowed people nearby to join group chats and play online video games together, adding to the app’s existing one-on-one virtual chat feature.

Tinder Mixer was discovered by researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, who found references to the feature in the app’s code. However, Tinder shut it down quickly and told Tech Crunch it’s not impacting its “product roadmap” for this year. However, Paluzzi’s findings about Tinder Mixer shows that Match Group is experimenting with new social discovery features through its dating apps, which shines some light on the company’s deal with Hyperconnect.

Match Group is expanding its portfolio with the acquisition of Hyperconnect, a popular South Korean social media company. Match Group purchased the company for $1.7 billion in stock and cash, according to an announcement made by the companies.

Match Group CFO Gary Swindler said in an interview with CNBC that the move to acquire Hyperconnect positions Match Group for further growth, as social discovery apps are a new way for people to connect beyond dating apps. Virtual connections have been in increasing demand since the start of the pandemic, with people isolated in their homes and feeling disconnected. Social discovery apps have been hugely popular and are expected to grow at a faster rate than dating apps, particularly in Asian markets, according to Swindler. 

Dating app Once, which dubs itself the “slow” dating app, has been sold to conglomerate Dating Group for $18 million in cash and stock, according to Tech Crunch.

Dating Group owns Dating.com, Dil Mil, AnastasiaDate and ChinaLove among other online dating platforms, competing directly with Bumble and Match Group’s suite of apps as well as Facebook Dating. It currently has offices in seven countries, and around 73 million users across its portfolio. Once comes with about 9 million users.

Once positioned itself as a more purpose-driven dating app, offering only one match per day to its users, who then have 24 hours to message that match to show interest, or they disappear. This offering was an intentional tactic to compete with the frenetic pace of apps like Tinder where people are inclined to swipe through dozens of profiles each minute rather than spending time really looking at each one. On the other hand, Once forced its users to consider one match at a time.