FROM THE WEB: What The PoF Deal Means For Dating Startups

In the wake of the dating industry’s biggest ever acquisition – The Match Group agreeing to buy Plenty of Fish for $575m – there may be some looking at upcoming dating startups as an attractive potential investment.

However a recent blog post written by Ronald Barba for Tech.co suggests otherwise, looking at why the Plenty of Fish deal could be problematic for the industry.

Barba looks at the Plenty of Fish deal in comparison to the relatively scant funding that is fed into the dating industry by VCs.

As he says: “When looking at the amount of funding alone that’s been pumped into this industry, dating startups have yet to break $100m in overall industry investment from venture capitalists.

“In 2014, VCs invested a mere $64.8m into online and mobile dating startups — that’s for the entire online dating services industry.

“Despite these numbers, people still willingly delude themselves to believe that their next dating startup is going to make it, and — sadly — I think PlentyOfFish’s acquisition by Match will only push people further into that delusion.”

It’s an interesting perspective following the deal that shocked the dating industry.

To read the full post, click here.