The Singaporean dating app Paktor has acquired Down, a San Francisco-based online dating company that brought sex to the forefront of its sales pitch, according to a report in TechCrunch on Friday.
The deal is reportedly worth “several million” and would be considered a win for investors as Down only raised US$1 million in total funding. Great Oaks Venture Capital and Tim Draper were the investors.
According to the article, Down (and its sister app Sweet) will continue to operate and the company’s CEO Colin Hodge will join Paktor as the head of Paktor Labs. Paktor Labs is a department with the mandate to develop new ideas and acquire other companies.
Down made its debut as ‘Bang With Friends’ and almost immediately was surrounded by controversy. It’s logo was two people having sex in the doggy-style position and many people were turned off by its obvious play towards casual sex.
The idea behind the app was to build a web of friends and when the urge struck, reach out to the network for sex.
The company eventually grew the network to include friends-of-friends, which broadened the possible matches and mitigated the awkwardness of propositioning a friend or acquaintance for a casual night together.
Bang With Friends, launched in 2013, wanted to reject the supposed ‘true love’ sales pitch of dating apps and be honest about what many people use dating apps for — sex.
This theory is not necessarily true. In many parts of the world, online dating apps have become a mandatory accessory for the modern dating environment and sex is very often not the end goal.
In October 2013, Bang With Friends was forced to change its name to ‘Down’ after settling a copyright infringement suit with the online gaming company Zynga (who owns the Scrabble-like game ‘Words with Friends’).
For Paktor, the dating app already has a presence in the US and a major part of its US$32.5 million funding round was to spur international expansion. Paktor has raised a total of US$57.5 million and has grown into the leading online dating app in Southeast Asia.
In December, the company acquired a controlling stake in 17 media, a Taiwanese live-streaming app. That acquisition diversified Paktor’s offerings by bringing digital entertainment into the fold. The acquisition of Down is more in-line with Paktor’s traditional business model.
One final note, Down was profitable at the time of the Paktor acquisition.
Original article here by e27
Attributed to Kevin McSpadden
Disclaimer: Paktor is a portfolio company of Convergence Ventures