WeChat is far and away the biggest messaging platform in China at this time, which is helping drive a push on the list of smaller players to obtain together for better scale. Today, Momo, the Chinese location-based social network application which has more recently made a large push into online dating services and it is exchanged on Nasdaq with an industry cap of around $6 billion, announced so it has obtained Tantan, China’s top dating application, for $600.9 million within an deal that is all-cash.
It’s not yet determined exactly how that price comes even close to Tantan’s pre-exit valuation: it had never disclosed the quantity. Overall, Tantan had raised $120 million, including a $70 million round last 12 months from a mixture of strategic and monetary investors. Its backers included DST worldwide, Kleiner Perkins, video clip social network YY, Genesis Capital, SAIF Asia, Zhongwei, DCM and Bertelsmann.
We’d really heard rumors of the purchase recently, so that it’s perhaps not coming as being a complete shock.
WeChat has you might say written the playbook in Asia for how exactly to leverage a well known social platform to transfer to other relevant solutions (business being among the biggies), and it also appears that would-be rivals are after suit. Other notable techniques and exits in recent years have actually included Alibaba buying Youku Tudou and also spending heavily in WeChat competitor Weibo; selfie-making app Meitu going public and Meituan Dianping building a transfer to transportation.
Because of its component, Momo had been getting into streaming services, however with federal government force throughout the content of the services, likely to its dating origins may have 
thought like a safer bet for the present time. The business just last year reported slightly below 95 million monthly users, however with a poor perspective, which means this can help it bump up its prospects.
Certainly, the company’s stock is currently up 11 per cent currently this morning into the wake associated with the news.
Specifically, the offer will certainly provide Momo a huge boost in a unique relationship business. Tantan said so it has enabled 5 billion matches since establishing in 2015. (As a spot of contrast, Tinder — one of several leading dating apps in the West — claims so it has enabled at the least 8 billion matches since its launch in 2012.)
This does not signal a shift for Momo into dating solely (sorry for the pun), but to increase straight down using one of this more ways that are successful it’s diversified its company.
“Our core place continues to center on social network and also this acquisition enriches our brand within the space that is social” said Yan Tang , president and CEO of Momo, in a declaration. “We continues to spend and incubate more sub-brands to provide the social and entertainment requirements of various demographics. Tantan has grown to become more popular in just a short amount of three years since its inception, which will be mostly owing to the outstanding performance of their skilled team. We also respect Tantan’s product strategy that centers around the consumer connection with feminine users. Following the purchase, the Tantan group will continue to operate the mobile apps underneath the Tantan brand with your complete help .”
Certainly, you can observe this as just like the strategy taken by IAC, which runs a true amount of dating apps alongside Tinder, such as Match.com and OKCupid.
For Tantan, the offer gives the company not just a money boost but possibly some economies of scale with its developer backend along with other regions of its company. “Momo and Tantan have their very own strengths inside their particular areas and among targeted customers,” said Yu Wang , c hairman and CEO of Tantan, in the very own declaration. “The purchase is a vital strategic upgrade to pay for a better array of individual demographics and requirements, and develop a more substantial social network market through complementary companies and strategic synergy. We have been really confident within our development this is certainly future.
Extra reporting by Jon Russell ( maybe perhaps not this Jon Russell).