Paktor Acquires US Hookup App Down

Paktor has started 2017 with another acquisition, buying US hookup app Down.

The deal was for “several million”, and follows Paktor’s acquisition of livestreaming app 17 last December.

Formerly called Bang With Friends, the casual app founded by Colin Hodge had a rough road, facing lawsuits and getting kicked off the App Store.

Launching in January 2013, Bang With Friends was removed from the App Store in May, when the product had 1m downloads, seemingly for breaching Apple’s store policy against “excessively objectionable or crude content”.

Hodge’s provocative app was then sued by Zynga, the creators of Scrabble app Words With Friends, who filed a trademark infringement claim in July over the app’s name.

The product returned to the App Store that September with a new name, Down, and all reference to the word “bang” removed from its listing, instead promising to “unlock your friends with benefits.”

Since then little has been heard from Down, but an article in TechCrunch reports that the app was recently acquired by Southeast Asia dating leader Paktor.

At the time of the deal, the terms of which were undisclosed but said to be for several million, Down boasted 5m downloads and had 200,000 MAUs.

The company was also profitable, Hodge revealed, making $1m annually from in-app revenue, having cut his team from six to one.

With the deal, Hodge will join Paktor, leading its product incubator Paktor Labs – helping to both acquire and grow early-stage social products.

Paktor raised a significant amount of funding last year – securing $32m in a November round co-led by VC firm K2Global and media company PT Media Nusantara Citra Tbk, to add to the $10m it pocketed in July.

The company, founded by Joseph Phua, rounded off the year by announcing its acquisition of a controlling stake in Asian livestreaming app 17, as Phua announced ambitions to push the company into the “social entertainment” space.

Read more about the acquisition here.