Finances

There is more bad news for FriendFinder Networks regarding their IPO (see Story). FriendFinder was suppose to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange this Thursday under the symbol FNN. They now plan to launch sometime the following week. The dip in the market last week is said to take partial blame as well as some last-minute questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission. These questions are not uncommon and can delay the process of launching a deal.

For more information, read the Wall Street Journal.

Avid Life Media Inc. is the parent company of several online dating sites. This includes the popular affairs site AsheleyMadison.com, as well as EstablishedMen.com and CougarLife.com. Avid Life Media is looking to raise $60 million with its possible debut on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) in the coming months. In 2009 Avid Life Media earned $30 million in revenue and $8 million in EBITDA. The dating site Ashley Madison, currently accounts for only 15 percent of the total revenue earned by Avid Life Media.

Avid Life Media plans to use some of the money raised to buy an online advertising sales company called Moxy Media.

In late October Zoosk was celebrating 40 million members (see Story) and had already received $10.5 million in funding over the last year or so. On December 3rd they announced that they had secured an additional $30 Million in Series D Funding. This round of funding was led by the oldest venture capital firm in the United States, Bessemer Venture Partners. David Cowan, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners will be joining Zoosk's Board of Directors as part of the deal.

Zoosk was launched 2 years ago in December of 2007 by Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr (who are now the co-CEOs). They plan to use the additional dollars to continue to build and expand the dating service. Money will also be spent on both online and offline marketing campaigns to increase Zoosk's exposure. Plus, there are rumors of expanding Zoosk to new platforms on the mobile front, including an iPhone App.

For more on the story you can read the press release. To find out more about this social dating community, read our review of Zoosk.

On November 9th Meetic released the financial results for the first 9 months of 2009. Revenue earned during this period totalled 117.2 million Euros (over $174 million USD). This is a 20 percent increase over the same period last year. From this income, the purchase of Match.com's UK site this year added 19 million Euros in revenue. 96 percent of all revenue was from sources in Europe.

Meetic's dating sites subscriber base totalled 970,623 as of September 30th, 2009. This is an increase of about 25,000 subscribers from the same date in 2008. No mention of Match.com's UK site is here so it is unsure if their subscriber numbers have been included in the Meetic 2009 numbers. We estimated that Match.com UK had about 291,000 paying subscribers as of quarter 2, 2009, at the time of the sale (see Story).

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes and Amortization (EBITDA) came to 24.1 million Euros over the first 9 months. This is an EBITDA margin of 20.5 percent. As of September 30th, 2009 Meetic had a net cash surplus of 41 million Euros and the only debt on the books was from the Match acquisition which is estimated at €7.1 million.

Expect the quarter 4 2009 financials and annual revenue for Meetic to be published on the 11th of February 2010.

News first spotted on OPW. For more information, read the full Meetic Q3 2009 Financial report.

CEO Noel Biderman is the face of Ashley Madison, and he has taken the marketing of the affairs dating site to the next level. He has a partnership with the Howard Stern's Sirius XM radio show, has ads on billboards and has created TV commercials (that most never seem to be allowed on air, see Story). He has even started to market AshleyMadison.com as a place where the married can pursue their same-sex attractions.

Currently The Ashley Madison Agency has between 4.6 and 4.7 million members who have logged on seeking and extramarital affair (I assume since the site launched in 2001). 30 percent (or 1.41 million) of these members are women. Also, about 150 thousand members are looking for a same-sex affair with two thirds being women looking for women. From a survey run on the affairs site, 50 percent of all respondents (both men and women) are not first timers and admit to cheating within a relationship at least once.

It is estimated that Ashley Madison generates tens of millions in revenue a year. People who have created a membership on the website can search for other members for free but must buy credits to message or chat. Ashley Madison even guarantees an affair with their most expensive subscription package. For $249 USD it is guaranteed you will find someone in 3 months to have an affair with, or you will get your money refunded. Currently AshleyMadison.com is the leading extramarital affairs dating site in the United States, Canada and Australia.

For more on this story, read MSN Money.

On November 5th, 2009 Spark Networks reported their third quarter results which ended on September 30, 2009. For Q3, 2009 Spark Networks revenue was $11.1 million. This is a 21 percent decrease from Q3, 2008 of $14 million and a 2 percent decrease from last quarter. For the first 9 months of this year total revenue is now at $34.3 million which is a 22 percent decrease from last year of $44.1 million.

The Jewish Networks saw revenue fall to $7.1 million for Q3. For the same quarter last year, revenue was 16 percent more at $8.4 million. Some good news is to be found though, for the first time in a few quarters, the Jewish Networks had an increase of subscribers to 86,051. This is a decrease of 6 percent from Q3, 2008 but a 4 percent increase from the prior quarter.

The Other Affinity Networks (MingleMatch) saw a decrease of 9% in revenue to $3.2 million when compared to last year. This is 3 percent less than the last quarter. Subscriber wise for the third quarter, there was 66,786. This is virtually identical to Q3 in 2008 and a 2 percent increase from last quarter.