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After Turning Down $30m Shark Tank Offer, Coffee Meets Bagel Raises $7.8m

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After turning down a $30m acquisition offer on Shark Tank, dating app Coffee Meets Bagel has closed $7.8m in Series A funding.

The investment was led by existing investor DCM Ventures, alongside Quest Ventures Partners and Azure Capital.

As part of the deal, DCM General Partner Osuke Honda will join the Coffee Meets Bagel board of directors.

The New York-based app was launched in 2012 by three sisters, and works by sending users one tailored match every day at noon.

Singles then have a 24 hour time limit to decide whether they want to like, or pass, their match.

Earlier in the year, the Coffee Meets Bagel founders appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank, pitching their app to the sharks, asking for 5% equity of their company for $500,000.

While Mark Cuban declined after the sisters wouldn’t reveal their number of users, he then gave them a $30m acquisition offer – which the sisters turned down.

With the current round of investment, Coffee Meets Bagel plan on expanding into new markets, and growing their team.

Arum Kang, CEO and co-founder of the app, says a focus on women is key to success in the mobile dating arena: “The online dating industry has always had difficulty attracting and retaining women. The typical gender ratio in a given dating app is 65 to 35 – men to women. The key to winning this market and expanding the size of the pie is winning over women and we have figured that out at Coffee Meets Bagel.”

The company recently rolled out their long-awaited Android app, and have just integrated with fitness activity tracker Jawbone UP to provide “fun insights and tips on fitness and dating” to Jawbone’s single community.

Previous investors in the dating app include Lightbank, Match.com founder Peng T. Ong, WI Harper Group and Venture Lounge.

Watch their appearance on Shark Tank below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci_3j89yo6k

Simon Edmunds

Simon is the former editor of Global Dating Insights. Born in Newcastle, he has an English degree from Queen Mary, London and after working for the NHS, trained as a journalist with the Press Association. Passionate about music, journalism and Newcastle United.

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