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Match Group Inc., the umbrella company that owns online dating services Tinder, Match.com and OKCupid, has filed for an initial public offering.
Tinder is based in LA and Match.com in Dallas, TX, but Match Group itself as a subsidiary of InterActiveCorp (IAC) is headquartered in New York. Match Group will be spun out from IAC as part of the IPO.
It’s not unexpected news as the deal has been flagged as far back as two years ago, when the dating sites were first packaged into a separate company from IAC. In June media mogul and IAC owner Barry Diller said he intended to float 20 percent of Match Group Inc. common stock in the deal.
The filing details that $100 million worth of shares will be offered reportedly on the NASDAQ under the ticker code MTCH. The company generated revenue of more than $888 million (an increase of 11 percent year on year) and a net income of $147 million (up 18 percent year on year) in 2014.
Match controls a large proportion of the online dating market with marquee names like Tinder, Match.com, OKCupid, HowAboutWe and PlentyOfFish. In total Match Group operates more than 45 brands, covering 190 countries and 38 languages.
The company claims 59 million monthly active users collectively and 4.7 million paid members, an increase of 23 percent in just the last quarter. In the filing Match Group says that cross pollination over all its brands has helped grow the user base enormously.
During the first half of 2015, 68 percent of new users signed up through mobile compared with just 27 percent for the same period in 2013. This swing towards mobile has seen Tinder take over as the most prominent brand in the company.
Though Tinder is based in West Hollywood, it has always been part of IAC since it was started in Hatch Labs in 2012. Match.com has been around since 1995 and now operates in 25 different countries in eight languages. IAC acquired New York-based OKCupid in Feb. 2011.
All Match group sites offer a freemium model and although some money is generated from advertising, the vast majority of revenue comes from member subscriptions for premium accounts, which is the case of Tinder, costs $10 per month.
Following the IPO, Match Group Inc, will still be a controlled company, meaning that IAC will still have a greater than 50 percent stake in the business. IAC has a host of other big name online media brands in its portfolio including About.com, Ask.com, College Humor, Invetopedia and Vimeo.
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