Paktor, a Southeast Asia dating app, has announced that it had four dating apps — DOWN, Sweet, Goodnight, and Kickoff — and will be moving them to a new entity, Paktor Labs. The dating apps have been acquired from Down, Inc. (USA), Goodnight (Taiwan) and Kickoff (Brazil) and it signals Paktor's global growth plans and take the four-year-old start-up's user base from the current 13 million to 20 million.
EXCLUSIVE: India holds plenty of opportunities, says Joseph Phua, CEO of dating app Paktor
"These 4 dating apps are natural complements to Paktor dating app and their stellar teams have demonstrated impressive organic growth. These transactions are aligned with Paktor Group's growth strategy and reflect our commitment to provide singles with a broader variety of choices based on their dating preferences and needs," Paktor Group CEO Joseph Phua said in a statement.
Further, Groopify, a soon-to-be-discontinued group dating app with presence in eight European and Latin American countries and about 250,000 users, will be joining Paktor Labs. A part of the Groopify team will be joining Paktor Labs, along with Pablo Viguera, CEO and co-founder of the group dating app.
The acquisitions will strengthen the current user base and bottomline of Paktor, according to the company. "Two of the acquired apps, DOWN and Sweet, will bring more than 5 million organically-acquired users to Paktor Group, with healthy profits and strong annual revenues," it said.
Down Inc. was founded by CEO Colin Hodge while Goodnight was co-founded by Howard Yang.
A few days, Paktor had announced relaunch of its Korean dating app "Swipe" (스와이프); it now has users in seven countries — Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Dating apps in India include Tinder, Truly Madly, OKCupid, Hinge, Woo, Bumble, Kama and Moco.
Mobile dating revenues in the US are forecast to grow to $415.3 million in 2017 from $381 million last year and $340 million in 2015, according to The Statista.
