The Company That Owns Tinder And OkCupid Is Going Public

The owner of Tinder, OkCupid, and more than 40 other dating brands, filed to go public on Friday after 5 p.m — prime swiping hours indeed.

Match Group, the owner of OkCupid, Tinder, Match.com — and, strangely enough, the Princeton Review — just filed to go public.

The filing provides a rare opportunity to examine the past, present and future monetization of your love life, and offers some clues on how today's most popular dating services are likely to change in coming years. Match Group's parent IAC, a conglomerate that also owns CollegeHumor and Vimeo, announced in June that its board approved an IPO. It will retain control of the company's board.

Match Group has more than 40 dating brands including PlentyOfFish, Meetic, Twoo, OurTime, BlackPeopleMeet and FriendScout24, and it hopes to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker "MTCH." Its goal is "to increase romantic connectivity worldwide."

Below, 11 of the most interesting points from the filing.

1. You're almost definitely going to see more advertising on Tinder.

2. You're not alone! Match says its target market of "people who are not in a committed relationship and who have access to the internet" numbers 511 million adults.

3. Match Group says it had 59 million monthly active users but just 4.7 million paid members as of Sept. 30, across all its brands.

4. It's spent more than $1.2 billion on acquisitions since 2009 to buy companies including OkCupid, Twoo, Meetic and PlentyOfFish.

5. Its users have gotten way younger in the past few years as it's added cheaper, mobile products. As of June 30, 62% of its users are under 35, compared with 36% at the end of 2011.

6. IAC bought the Princeton Review last year for more than $100 million, which became Match Group's "non-dating" segment. The logic: it "relies on many of the same competencies as our dating business."

7. Match Group brought in about $888 million in revenue last year, an 11% increase, and posted an adjusted profit of $273.4 million.

8. The company says that 89% of singles in North America recognize at least one of its brands when shown a list of dating brands.

9. Cell phones have changed the game: 68% of new users signed up for Match Group's products via mobile in the first half of this year, compared with 27% in the same period two years ago.

10. The company actually noted that a decline in the usage of email "particularly among our younger users," could be a risk for its business.

11. Match just announced the biggest acquisition in the matchmaking industry in July, with its $575 million proposed purchase of PlentyOfFish, which was founded in 2003. The purchase has yet to close.

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