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Vancouver-based online dating site PlentyOfFish has been sold to The Match Group for a whooping $575 million in cash.
The Match Group is the operator of dating products such as Match, Tinder, OkCupid, and Meetic. The company has entered into a definitive agreement with PlentyOfFish, with the transaction expected to close early in the fourth quarter.
"For over a decade I have followed the consistent growth of PlentyOfFish, first within North America, then globally, and most recently across platforms, as one of the most popular mobile dating products in the world," said Sam Yagan, CEO of The Match Group. "As more people than ever use more dating apps than ever with more frequency than ever, PlentyOfFish's addition both brings new members into our family of products and deepens the lifetime relationship we have with our users across our portfolio. I look forward to working closely with Markus and extending the company's impressive growth trajectory."
"We are thrilled to be joining forces with Match," said Markus Frind, CEO of PlentyOfFish. "My team and I have grown PlentyOfFish into one of the leaders in our category, and I am confident that Match will help accelerate our growth even further."
The agreement still needs to receive approval from the Minister of Industry pursuant to the Investment Canada Act. PlentyOfFish employs 75 people including programmers, marketing managers, and customer service representatives. The site relies on volunteers to monitor forums and sort through the 50,000 new photos uploaded each day to ensure graphic content does not appear on the site. There are an estimated 100,000,000 users on PlentyOfFish. It is considered the number one dating site in Canada and the UK, and the site garners two billion page views per month.
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