A Match Made in Heaven: Dating App Momo Buys Tantan for USD 600 Million

This post comes courtesy of our content partners at TechNode.

China’s two biggest dating apps have announced their marriage. Momo (陌陌) will acquire 100 percent fully diluted equity stake in Tantan (探探) for a combination of share consideration and cash, including approximately 5.3 million newly issued Class A ordinary shares of the Company and USD 600.9 million in cash, the company announced today in a press release.

The matrimony, however, will not result with a Motan or a Tanmo: it is understood that the two companies will continue to operate independently. The deal is expected to be completed in Q2 of 2018.

Momo is China’s biggest location-based social and dating network and this is its first big purchase after listing in the US in 2014. Momo has heavily invested in China’s live streaming trend which brought them impressive 524 percent year-on-year revenue jump to USD 246.1 million in Q4 of 2016. During last year, the app continued to integrate new features such as one-on-one (Fast chat) and group (Party) video streaming as well as new options for playing Werewolf, one of China’s most popular party games.

Tantan, on the other hand, has made its fame as the Tinder of China. The app has about 6-7 million daily active users and has matched over 3-4 billion pairs of users, founder and CEO Wang Yu told TechNode in November last year. The company then announced that app is planning to add paid memberships in an effort to monetize.

In June 2017, Tantan raised USD 70 million in a Series D financing round, raising the startup’s total fund to USD 120 million. The round was led by NASDAQ-listed online social entertainment firm YY Inc and Genesis Capital with participation from SAIF and Zhongwei Capital.

Image courtesy of TechNode