Deal Radar 2009: Zoosk

Today’s Deal Radar moves the spotlight from enterprise software and open source to a topic that has not made an appearance recently: online dating. Zoosk, a dating network, was founded by Alex Mehr and Shayan Zadeh. They had met as students at Sharif University of Technology, Iran, and reunited in January 2007 to start a

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Deal Radar 2008: eHarmony Replacing Yenta

eHarmony is an online dating/matchmaking site that uses its patented Compatibility Matching System™ to match singles. In November 2004, eHarmony raised $110 million in a Series B round of financing from Sequoia Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures and Tuputele Ventures. It had earlier raised $3 million in Series A from Sarofim Fayez and Co.

Web 3.0 and Verticalization

I have worked with the Web 3.0 framework for months now, and taken a crack at defining how the web is likely to evolve in the future. So here’s a recap of the thesis so far. I will be adding a dimension to this framework shortly, so it is a good time to stop and

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Online Dating & Web 3.0 (Part 5)

M&A and VC activity Match.com, a business unit of IAC, acquired edodo in China and Netclub in France in February this year. Match operates 35 country sites in 15 languages. The deal will add 4 million subscribers to Match.com’s already existing 15 million. In January 2007, Meetic acquired DatingDirect, a UK online dating site, for

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Online Dating & Web 3.0 (Part 4)

Web 3.0 formula discussion (4C, P, VS) Here, we will take a look at the Web 3.0 aspects of online dating sites. Context As we mentioned earlier, Context for dating sites is becoming increasingly more focused and nichy, as sites look for different avenues to differentiate. Some popular contexts that are emerging are Seniors, Gay,

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Online Dating & Web 3.0 (Part 3)

Business Model Most of the online dating sites earn money mainly from subscription, ad revenue and products and services sold through its sites. The subscription rates for the dating sites vary from $29.99 per month for Match.com to $39.95 per month for Yahoo! Personals to $49.99 for True.com to $59.95 per month for eHarmony.com. eHarmony

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Online Dating & Web 3.0 (Part 2)

Top Players and Rankings Online dating, personals and matchmaking sites have been riding a boom for the past five years. According to the latest Hitwise data True.com is the most popular dating site in the US with 11% market share followed by Singlesnet.com (9.93%), Yahoo! Personals (9.13%) and Match.com (8.22%). True, founded in 2003, has

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Online Dating & Web 3.0 (Part 1)

Overview Online dating (including Matchmaking, Personals and Matrimonials) is making waves across the world. In this era of online networking, dating on the net has revolutionized the age old profession of matchmaking by making it more affordable and convenient to the masses. According to Hitwise there are more than 1,421 sites in the Lifestyle –

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