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Dating app Paktor raises $32.5 million from K2 Global, PT Media Nusantara
Developers of smartphone dating app Paktor log in to their accounts to show their Paktor profiles at their office in Singapore July 16, 2015.Reuters filePaktor, the Singapore-based dating app that is in competition with Tinder in Southeast Asia, has raised $32.5 million in the latest round of funding led jointly by San Francisco-based venture capital firm K2 Global and PT Media Nusantara, an Indonesia-based company. Founded in July 2013, Paktor has raised $57 million till date, including $22 million in July this year. The app claims to have facilitated 5 billion profile views since inception. The money raised in the latest round would be used to widen the product portfolio. "We see a strong shift in user behaviour with the consumption of interactive media entertainment on mobile platforms and this will put the muscle behind Paktor's strong Asian network and mobile expertise to expand into new business lines within social entertainment. This, as we maintain our stronghold in the region as the leading dating company and rich media content sharing network," Joseph Phua, CEO and co-founder of Paktor Group, said in a statement. K2 Global specialises in growth equity, founder liquidity, early and late-stage venture investments in technology companies, according to its profile. The firm said Paktor has displayed consistent growth and is poised to grow further. "The company has shown tremendous traction and growth over the past year to evolve into the dating powerhouse it is today. We're confident that the team has both the passion and experience to propel the company forward to build a leading social entertainment platform in the region," Ozi Amanat, Managing Partner at K2 Global said. Paktor does not have plans for India and China, though its rival Tinder thinks otherwise. "We concluded with certainly [that] we don't know [about India and China] and have concluded with certainty that we don't want to tackle uncertainty right now," Techcrunch had quoted Phua as saying in July this year. Tinder has an average of about 14 million swipes everyday, according to a report in The Outlook.
Publish Date : 2022-05-16
Daily Briefing: CPF, HDB, IRAS to resume operations from 2 June; Kollective Ventures acquires Paktor Group | Singapore Business Review
And B Capital, Antler announced collaboration.From Channel News Asia:Selected government service centres will resume operations from 2 June, but will only accommodate customers by appointment, as Singapore exits the COVID-19 circuit breaker period.These include the five Central Provident Fund (CPF) service centres, service counters at HDB Hub and HDB branches, as well as the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore's (IRAS) taxpayer and business service centre at Revenue House.Other services that will resume operations from 2 June include the Ministry of Manpower’s employment pass services centre, the Health Promotion Board's student health centre, and the National Environment Agency's one-stop information and service centre for hawkers at HDB Hub.The Courts will also resume hearings. Where possible and appropriate hearings will be conducted using remote communication technology.Meanwhile, selected dental clinics in schools will reopen from 2 June without the need for appointments.Read more here. From e27: Capital advisory and investment firm Kollective Ventures (KV) has completed the acquisition of Paktor Group from Taiwan-based M17 Entertainment, according to an announcement.Paktor is the umbrella that owns a few dating assets, including its namesake app available in Taiwan, Korea and Southeast Asia, and Goodnight, a voice-dating app.This deal is also KV’s foray into full buyouts, beyond minority equity investments. Founded in July 2013, Paktor Group’s other products include Down, Sweet, and Kickoff. In addition, it also runs offline matchmaking agency GaiGai and image and date coaching agency Fleek.In 2016, Paktor raised $46.2m (US$32.5m) in a funding round, led by K2Global, with participation from existing investor, Indonesian conglomerate PT Media Nusantara Citra Tbk and preceded by a $14.23m (US$10m) from investors, including YJ Capital, Global Grand Leisure, Golden Equator Capital and Sebrina Holdings Venture Capital.Read more here. From DealStreetAsia:B Capital Group has formed a partnership with startup incubator Antler in order to strengthen the startup community, according to an announcement.B Capital and Antler will jointly launch a number of events aimed at supporting entrepreneurs. The events will focus on enterprise application software across multiple industries around the world.In January, Antler announced it had raised $71.16m (US$50m) for its funds across multiple countries. Meanwhile, B Capital has raised $853.86m (US$600m) for its second fund and is now seeking to hit its hard cap of $1.07b (US$750m).Read more here.
Publish Date : 2020-05-26
M17 sells its online dating assets to focus on live streaming
M17 sells its online dating assets to focus on live streaming M17 Entertainment announced today that it has sold its online dating assets to focus on its core live-streaming business in Asia and other markets. Paktor Pte, which operates Paktor dating app and other services, was acquired by Kollective Ventures, a venture capital advisory firm. The value of the deal was undisclosed. In its announcement, Taipei-based M17 said the sale will allow it to focus on expanding its live-streaming business in markets including Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong. Earlier this month, the company said it had raised a $26.5 million Series D that will be used for growth in Japan, where M17 claims a 60% share of the live-streaming market, and expansion into new places like the United States and the Middle East. Its live-streaming apps include 17LIVE (an English-language version is called Livit), Meme Live and live-streaming e-commerce platforms HandsUP and FBBuy. In a statement, M17 CFO Shang Koo said, “As our Japan live-streaming business has skyrocketed, we found we were unable to devote the same level of internal resources to our dating business in Southeast Asia. Becoming independent will allow Paktor to control its own destiny as M17 focuses heavily on the future of its streaming services in our largest market, Japan.” Paktor will operate independently of M17 after the sale, but Koo said, “we hope to continue working with Paktor on future business cooperation and will always value the synergy and teamwork between M17 and Paktor.” M17 was formed in April 2017 when Paktor merged with 17 Media. A year later, M17 was supposed to go public, but cancelled its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange on the same day it was supposed to start trading, citing “issues related to the settlement” of shares that CEO Joseph Phua later explained in detail to Tech in Asia.
Publish Date : 2020-05-22
Paktor, a major rival to Tinder in Asia, moves into live-streaming via merger deal
Dating app Paktor, often dubbed ‘The Tinder of Southeast Asia,’ just sealed up its move into live-streaming and media content after it announced a merger deal with Taiwanese startup 17 Media. Under the deal, a new company called M17 Entertainment has been created with shares from both Paktor and 17 Media, company representatives confirmed. They didn’t, however, reveal a valuation for the transaction, although M17 claims to be Asia’s “largest social entertainment company.” The deal makes plenty of sense in many ways. Paktor CEO Joseph Phua spoke of his desire to expand into social entertainment when his company raised its most recent $32.5 million funding round last October. In addition, Paktor, which is best known for a Tinder-like dating app in Southeast Asia, made a major investment in 17 Media last December, with Phua relocating to Taiwan to become its CEO. Following the merger, he has become M17 Entertainment’s Group CEO. “This is a corporate move that allows for aligned interest among all shareholders and makes [the] structure clearer to investors,” Phua told TechCrunch in an interview. “That’s something that had been brought up when [we were] fundraising.” On the strategic side, it brings some clarity to Paktor’s previous intention to move into “social entertainment,” a fairly nebulous term that encompasses any kind of entertainment on a smartphone. Something that, at least, goes beyond dating. Paktor currently offers four dating apps — core service Paktor and acquired apps Down, Kickoff and Goodnight — while 17 Media’s runs its 17 live-streaming app, photo social network Swag and video group chat service Lit. The new entity will retain all, and expand many, of those services, which Phua told TechCrunch are collectively on course to gross $100 million in annualized revenue based on its most recent month of business, and the recently announced Paktor Labs division. That revenue — and there’s no word on profit; we did ask — is up ten-times over the past six-months. All together, the apps claim a combined 50 million users. Revenue potential of live-streaming Phua, who believes the firm can double its revenues before the end of this year, is particularly bullish around the potential of live-streaming. “Live-streaming allows us to expand into numerous other areas, for example content production. Right now, we’ve only touched the content on live-streaming. With one small screen taking up 45 minutes [of a user’s] day, we can support a huge company,” he said. “On the revenue side, $100 million in [annualized] revenue is sizable when you compare it to traditional media, which relies on advertising — something we haven’t done yet,” Phua added. Beyond enabling consumer live-streaming, M17 plans to work with established media and high-profile media personalities to tap into mobile in a way that the firm believes they aren’t doing yet. Already, it has partnered with (its investor) MNC in Indonesia and Yahoo in Taiwan to explore new broadcast methods and monetization options, and Phua believes there’s much more to come. “We want to explore ways to monetize with audiences with traditional media using both existing and new stars,” he said, adding that M17 has begun housing new stars under its own talent agent. “Celebs are finding monetization is very significant on live-streaming.” Phua didn’t diverge specific revenues for his company’s live-streaming services — other that it is “significant” — but he did say that 17 (the app) claims 15 million registered users. Unfortunately, the company doesn’t reveal user activity data, although it claims 50,000 active streamers and top-three app store rankings in the live-streaming category in six Asian countries. Battling established names Even if engagement is high, there’s strong competition for attention. The list of established companies moving into streaming is nearly endless. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch and then in China fellow dating app Momo, and fast-growing Kuaishou among others. Competing against destinations that already have audiences in the hundreds of millions, if not billions, is a tall order, but Phua said he believes that M17 has an advantage because it has been built for streaming from day one. “Facebook and Instagram Live are great. Facebook has embraced live tech and we are all moving in the right direction, but different mediums have different purposes,” he said. “With 17, you build your fanbase and expose yourself to people who wouldn’t have already discovered you. People recognize brands for what they were not what they want to build to.” That longer term challenge aside, Phua is stacking more cash in the short term even though he said the company is already suitably financed. Paktor has raised $77 million from investors since its foundation in 2013, according to Crunchbase, but now M17 is closing an undisclosed — but “significant” — new round with the KTB China Synergy Fund its first confirmed investor. “I wouldn’t say it was difficult to raise this round, but I’m cautious about the environment and want to make sure we always have options,” Phua said. “We’ve not been stronger over the last four years. Our goal remains the same: building the largest social entertainment company in the region.”
Publish Date : 2017-04-26
Tinder rival Paktor launches ‘Labs’ division to experiment with the future of social apps
It turns out that Asian dating app Paktor’s quiet acquisition of Down was more than just a one night stand. The deal, which TechCrunch broke news of last week, was part of a number of acquisitions that has led to the creation of Paktor Labs, an experimental division that is led by Down founder Colin Hodge. Paktor, best known as a Tinder rival in Asia, has been pushing to diversify its business for some time. Speaking when it closed a $32.5 million funding round in October, CEO Joseph Phua told us that he was looking to move into “social entertainment” and tap into consumer media trends such as live streaming. It is retaining the focus on its core Tinder-like swiping app called Paktor, but Labs is how it will look to the future and develop spin-off services. “It’s an experimental and high-paced lab that works with acquired apps or new projects that have the chance to grow and prove themselves,” Hodge told TechCrunch in an interview. “We want to develop a formula for releasing a social app, and growing it to significant revenue and user activity.” The current Paktor Labs projects include Down (and sister app Sweet), Taiwan’s Goodnight and Brazil-based Kickoff, each of which are new acquisitions announced today, and one unnamed internal project. Led by Hodge, it is staffed by a team of eight which includes most of those behind recently shuttered Spanish app Groopify, including its CEO and co-founder Pablo Viguera. Hodge revealed that he began collaborating with Paktor back in May 2016 before selling the company and formally coming aboard later in the year. Already, he claimed, Paktor Labs has increased Down’s monthly revenue 24-fold — while he didn’t state a figure, he said the app was already profitable. Down is Labs’ largest project with over five million downloads to date and around 200,000 monthly active users. Goodnight, the Taiwanese app that uses voice memos and is focused on finding friends, is another Hodge said has seen the benefit of Labs. Revenue went from nothing to “quite a significant amount,” he said. Paktor is primarily focused on Southeast Asia, but it also offers services in other parts of Asia, Latin America, Europe and the U.S. via partners and now these acquisitions. Hodge, who is currently based in Bangkok, Thailand, said Paktor Labs is looking to Southeast Asia for its new app development ideas to keep it “focused on playing to Paktor’s strength.” Paktor has raised more than $50 million from investors such as Yahoo Japan-affiliate YJ Capital and Singapore’s Vertex Ventures. The four-year-old company claims over 25 million users worldwide across all services and over 120 staff. CEO Phua said the firm was net profitability when it closed the recent round, he said there was plenty of money in the bank since it hadn’t touched its previous $10 million round — now we know where some of those resources have been channeled to. Post updated to clarify that Pakor did not acquire Groopify
Publish Date : 2017-02-08
Term Sheet — Monday, January 23
Last year, the U.S. tech titans slowed their pace of acquisitions, but three companies bucked that trend: Google, Intel, and Salesforce. Of the three, Salesforce had the highest acceleration of deals. Last year the $53 billion software company did 120% more acquisitions than it did in 2015, according to CB Insights. I recently spoke with John Somorjai, the EVP of corporate development and Salesforce Ventures.Here are a few takeaways from our conversation, which I’ll post in full on Fortune.com later today:• Salesforce has been aggressively snapping up AI talent, including MetaMind and Krux Digital, the latter a $700 million deal. The key word here is talent (and to some extent, products), says Somorjai: “I have yet to see a large AI-centric business for enterprise cloud."• The company isn’t looking to move into more back-office technologies like cloud financials or enterprise resource planning (ERP). There are too many deals it could do related to its existing CRM-focused business, he says.• Coop-etition is inevitable. Of Salesforce’s 200+ investments, it has acquired nine. Others, like Box, have grown into partners, and others still have grown into competitors.• Valuations have “moderated” in the last year: “In 2015, a lot of the high growth companies were going at 12x to 14x multiples of revenue. Now it’s more like 8x to 10x. And then if you go down a level, to the companies not in hypergrowth mode but still growing at 30% to 40% a year, the multiples there are comparable to public market,” he says.• Somorjai believes social media marketing and mobile analytics startups are overhyped: “Those are great examples where so many VCs are investing in companies of similar capabilities. And the valuations are very rich and a lot of money is being thrown at companies not creating sustainable business models,” he says.Verihoo (Yahizon?): Yahoo reports its earnings after the market closes today. It’s company’s the first earnings report since it revealed its massive hacking, which now threatens to ruin its very complicated agreed-upon sale to Verizon. Convenient timing that this morning we learn the SEC is now investigating Yahoo for waiting to disclose the hacking, adding further headaches for its potential buyer.In the past, CEO Marissa Mayer has kicked off earnings calls by saying she’s not going to answer questions on Yahoo’s sale process. The current situation could certainly use some reassurance, or explanation, from her, especially since Verizon executives have been chatty in the press about their qualms on the deal in recent weeks. But instead, the company is choosing to minimize noise around the deal – it isn’t even holding an earnings call.Note: This article has been corrected to say that Box is a partner of Salesforce, not a competitor.THE LATEST FROM FORTUNE... • Stocks to own if Trump brings foreign cash home.• Judge okays huge post-bankruptcy loan for Avaya.• Can AI silence internet trolls?• If you can’t beat Russian hackers, hire one.• Can a 72-year-old railroad legend do it again?• Tidal may have been wildly inflating subscriber numbers.• Slap on the wrist: Why big pharma isn’t afraid to behave badly.• The Fortune Unfiltered podcast features Stephanie Linnartz, Chief Global Commercial Officer of Marriot.• Apple vs. Qualcomm.• Today in Trump: No tax returns for you, renegotiating NAFTA, ethics lawsuit, a zero-sum economic vision.….AND ELSEWHERERetailers turn to Silicon Valley to lure customers. Not here to make friends. Davos, through a woman’s eyes. Snap is all about engagement. Purge. Alternative facts. Crowd scientists. Marches on every continent. No record of resignation. $86.7 billion in tech spending. The world’s largest fund vs. Panasonic’s takeover of PanaHome. The rise of boutique investment banks. Snapchat’s hard line policy on fake news and explicit content. Guy Hands: Brexit could cut wages by 30%. Doomsday prep for the super-rich (including some familiar Silicon Valley names). A VC’s plan for Big Carp. Uber drivers are sleeping in parking lots. A profile of Gary Parr, Apollo’s new guy.VENTURE DEALS• Tricentis, a Vienna, Austria-based developer of software testing tools, raised $165 million in Series B financing from Insight Venture Partners.• Nuna, a San Francisco developer of a data platform for Medicaid, has raised more than $90 million in funding, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and John Doerr.• UR Work, a Chinese co-working startup, has raised 400 million yuan ($58 million) in Series B funding, bringing its valuation above $1 billion, according to China Daily. Read more.• Cuemath, an education startup based in Bengaluru, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by CapitalG with participation from Sequoia Capital, according to the Times of India. Read more.• TrustPilot, a multi-language online review community based in Copenhagen, has raised $6.9 million from Draper Esprit.• Lumus, an Israeli augmented reality lens company, has raised $6 million in funding from Alibaba, according to Geektime. Read more.• Mainstreaming, an Italian video delivery startup, has raised €4 million ($4.2 million) in Series A venture capital funding from United Ventures.• Mobike, a Chinese bicycle rental app, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Foxconn. The investment comes shortly after the company raised $215 million in funding from Tencent Holdings and Warburg Capital. Read more at Fortune.• Pitchero, a UK-based sports club startup, has raised £3.1 million ($3.8 million) in Series A funding led by ICM, according to TechCrunch. Read more.HEALTH + LIFE SCIENCES DEALS• Edeniq, a Visalia, Calif.-based cellulosic and biorefining technology company, has raised $7 million in capital from existing investors, including Flint Hills Resources, Angeleno Group, I2BF Global Ventures, and Cyrus Capital, along with new investor Trinity Capital Investment.• Adarza BioSystems Inc., a Henrietta, N.Y.-based developer of a biological assay platform for measuring clinical and point-of-care samples, has raised $17 million in its Series C funding from RiverVest Venture Partners.PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS• Precision Castparts Corporation, a piping components company owned by Berkshire Hathaway, will acquire Wilhelm Schulz, a German piping component company, according to Bloomberg. Read more.• Warburg Pincus portfolio company Accriva Diagnostics, has agreed to acquire Werfen, a privately held medical diagnostics firm headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, and its subsidiary Instrumentation Laboratory, based in Bedford, MA. In the transaction, Werfen and its subsidiary have acquired all shares of Accriva.• Warburg Pincus has hired Goldman Sachs to sell Safetykleen Europe, a provider of used oil collection, recycling and parts cleaning services, Reuters reported. Warburg Pincus acquired the company 2008 for 565 million pounds ($695.57 million) and could ask as much as 640 million pounds including debt for the asset. Read more.• Funko, an Everett, Wash.-based maker of pop culture products backed by ACON Investments, has acquired the assets of Underground Toys Unlimited, a creator, manufacturer and distributor of licensed products based in London.• Grupo Espaçolaser, a Brazil-based provider of laser hair removal services, has raised growth capital from L Catterton. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.OTHER DEALS• Bitcoin Investment Trust, a vehicle created by SecondMarket co-founder Barry Silbert, has filed to raise $500 million in an IPO on NYSE Arca.• ING Life Korea, an insurer backed by MBK Partners, has hired Morgan Stanley and Samsung Securities for an IPO. It plans to raise at least $1 billion, according to Reuters. Read more.• FinTech Acquisition Corp. a blank-check company backed by The Bancorp, priced its IPO at $10 per share, raising $153 million on Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol FNTEU.EXITS• PAI Partners has entered exclusive negotiations to sell Cerba HealthCare, a European clinical pathology business, to Partners Group and the Public Sector Pensions Investment Board.• Outfit7, Cyprus-based the maker of the Talking Tom mobile app, has sold to United Luck Consortium for $1 billion. The company’s apps have been downloaded more than 5.6 billion times. Read more at Fortune.• Sprint (NYSE:S) has agreed to acquire 33% of Tidal. Read more at Fortune.• AMC Theatres (NYSE:AMC) has agreed to acquire Stockholm-based Nordic Cinema Group Holding, a theater operator, from European private equity firm Bridgepoint and Swedish media group Bonnier Holding in an all-cash transaction valued at SEK 8,250 million ($929 million).• Francisco Partners has sold Source Photonics, a West Hills, Calif.-based provider of optical components and modules to a consortium led by Redview Capital and Asia-IO. TR Capital, Axiom Asia and Aberdeen Asset Management participated. Francisco Partners acquired the asset in 2010 as a carve-out from MRV Communications.• Wix (NASDAQ:WIX) has acquired Flok, a New York-based provider of commerce technology. Flok raised $18.88 million from General Catalyst and Gemini Israel Ventures.• Down, the San Francisco startup known for making the controversial app “Bang With Friends,” has agreed to sell to Paktor, a Singapore social networking company. Down was backed by Tim Draper and Great Oaks Venture Capital.FIRMS + FUNDS• China has created a 100 billion yuan ($14.55 billion) fund to invest in internet technology. Read more at Fortune.• Angeles Equity Partners, a Los Angeles investment firm founded by Timothy Meyer and Jordan Katz, has raised $360 million for its first fund.• Northlane Capital Partners, a Bethesda, Md.-based private equity firm, has completed its spinout from American Capital in connection with American Capital’s sale to Ares Capital Corporation (Nasdaq: ARCC).NEW JOBS• Amit Singal, former Senior Vice President of Search and 176th employee at Google, has joined Uber SVP of Engineering, according to TechCrunch. Read more.• Joshua Pang has joined Blackstone Group as a principal. He was previously a principal at BC Partners.• Hugo Barra, VP of the global division for Chinese device maker Xiaomi, will leave the company and return to the U.S. Read more at Fortune.SHARE TODAY'S TERM SHEETTerm Sheet is produced by Laura Entis. Submit deal items here. View this email in your browser.
Publish Date : 2017-01-23