German online dating site Parship has been bought by Oakley Capital Investments Limited.
The dating site was founded in 2001 and has headquarters in Hamburg.
Parship was one of Europe’s earliest online dating companies, and has built up a strong position in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and is live in 10 other markets.
Parship generated revenues of approximately €60m and EBITDA of approximately €8m for the year ended 31 December 2014.
Parship’s Managing Directors, Tim Schiffers, Henning Rönneberg and Marc Schachtel, said: “We are excited to work with our new shareholder. In 2014 we were able to grow the business by 35% and have achieved all time high revenues of €60 million.
“Oakley’s strong track record of partnering with management teams to grow and build companies lays the perfect foundation to further strengthen Parship’s market position and to continue our exceptional growth story.”
Their EBITDA for the last 12 months, up until the 31st March 2015, was over €12m.
Oakley Capital Private Equity II bought the company from Holtzbrinck Digital GmbH, a subsidiary of Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH & Co., with a contribution of €20.9m from Oakley Capital Investments Limited.
Mark Joseph, Partner of Oakley Capital Private Equity, said: “We are delighted to be investing in Parship, the company has a strong record of growth and a leading position in this attractive online sector which and this transaction builds on Oakley’s experience of investing in digital businesses such as Verivox.de and Facile.it.”