Tuesday, July 15, 2014

IAC bought in part online dating service HowAboutWe

http://seekingalpha.com/news/1842755-iac-buys-dating-service-howaboutwe
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/digital-love-consolidated-iac-buys-howaboutwe-dating-site/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
From
OPW and Crunchbase
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2014/06/iac-to-acquire-howaboutwe.html
http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/howaboutwe

HowAboutWe received over USD22 Million as venture capital.
A comment at OPW from
 " Jeff R said... Lets be honest - they agreed to pay the bills, take over the business and hire 5 people...not exactly an "acquisition" "

Do you remember
the SmartDate
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2011/11/smartdate-employees-stiffed-vc-rails-against-ceo.html
and
LikeIt
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2013/04/likeit-to-close-down-tomorrow.html
cases?
It seems VC investors agreed to show a big success, and no more failures.
They should show HowAboutWe as successfully sold to IAC, not closed as SmartDate or LikeIt!



They acquire because they can not innovate in the Online Dating Industry.
"online dating" is a broad concept to define a large group of different proposals.
http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.com.ar/2013/01/online-dating-is-broad-concept.html
The average dater belongs to 4 o 5 online dating sites at the same time.


During 2011 HowAboutWe received a series B USD15 Million investment.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-year-of-crazy-growth-that-led-to-howaboutwes-new-15-million-series-b-round-2011-11
Last year, 2013, "HowAboutWe Internationalized Its Dating App, Went Entirely Free In 30+ Countries"
http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.com.ar/2013/10/howaboutwe-internationalizes-its-dating.html
HowAboutWe is performing as a social dating site.

All social dating is vaporware.
Many social dating applications should collapse soon, like Badoo, Hinge, HowAboutWe, LikeBright, in the same road as LikeIt (TheCompleteMe).
Online Dating for serious daters does not need to be more social, it needs to be more effective/efficient. It needs to reduce the false positives problem.
http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.com.ar/2014/06/the-iac-nasdaq-iaci-to-acquire.html
http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.com.ar/2014/06/is-iac-going-to-pay-bribery-to-some-vc.html

-------------------------------
As for Tinder:  "In the real transaction, which happened quickly several weeks ago, well-known Silicon Valley investor Chamath Palihapitiya sold his 11 percent stake in Tinder to IAC for about USD55 million."
http://recode.net/2014/04/11/hot-but-not-that-hot-tinder-stake-sale-puts-valuation-of-whole-startup-at-500-million/
http://seekingalpha.com/news/1671873-re-code-tinder-valued-at-500m-in-deal-iac-owns-70-percent-stake
That deal was  exactly done some days BEFORE the famous "Tinder Lawsuit" was filed.

"Tinder Drama" is like a "Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident" in Silicon Valley!
It will be remembered for years.
My bet: the IAC will "discretely bury" Tinder soon, it will absorb it and merge with Match mobile (with Stream and Mixer features) as soon as possible.
http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.com.ar/2014/07/new-articles-and-others-if-tinder-had.html


Please read also:
Zoosk to run out of money soon? Zoosk IPO delayed?
http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.com.ar/2014/07/zoosk-to-run-out-of-money-soon-zoosk.html

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