Zoosk, the Largest Social Dating Network in the World, Completes Second Round of Funding
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) June 12, 2008 -- Zoosk (http://www.zoosk.com/), the fastest growing social dating network in the world, announced today it has completed its second round of funding, raising $4.1 million. The round was led by Canaan Partners (http://www.canaan.com/) and included ATA Ventures (http://www.ataventures.com/). ATA Ventures was also a first round investor in Zoosk along with Amidzad Partners. Zoosk will use the funds to expand its marketing efforts, increase its subscriber base across additional social networks and develop compelling new features for its network.
Zoosk is the first and largest dating application built for social network users. Zoosk makes online dating casual, social, and fun by allowing people to meet and connect through the context of their online social communities. Zoosk seamlessly integrates with the most popular social networking sites including Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. Zoosk is one of the most profitable social dating applications available today and has realized 30% month over month growth in its subscriber base.
"We have quickly become the dominant player in the social dating space and we plan to continue to rapidly expand our user base across even more social networks," said Shayan Zadeh, co-CEO of Zoosk. "We allow people to seamlessly connect across multiple social networks, for example a Facebook user can interact with a MySpace user, and this ability has given us unprecedented access to today's young, single professionals. Our new funds will allow us to expand our network of subscribers and add even more new features that will make the social dating experience even more fun and less painful."
Zoosk was founded in 2007 and the company has more than 400,000 daily unique visitors across its properties including Zoosk.com. More than 1,000,000 messages per day are exchanged through Zoosk and there are three million dating profiles on the network with a growth rate 5-7% per week. Deepak Kamra, General Partner at Canaan Partners, will join Zoosk's board of directors. Mike Hodges, Venture Partner at ATA Ventures, is an existing Zoosk board member and he will remain on the board.
"We are experienced investors in the digital media market and we have helped many companies in the online dating and social web markets, such as Match.com, break through to new levels of growth," said Deepak Kamra, General Partner at Canaan Partners. "Zoosk is changing the online dating industry and the company's ability to connect people across social networks has given the company a unique advantage. We are excited to help Zoosk achieve even greater success and believe the company has the right mix of innovation, market timing and leadership to take advantage of the growing market opportunity in online dating."
About Zoosk:
Zoosk is the fastest growing social dating network enabling millions of singles to meet love interests and forge long lasting relationships. Building on users' social graph and taking advantage of opportunities on social networks, Zoosk has created a safe, fun, and delightful online dating experience. Zoosk has quickly grown to a community of over three million singles from many countries around the globe, including United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Sweden, and many more. Zoosk is based in San Francisco and was founded in January 2007 by Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr. For more information visit: www.zoosk.com.
About Canaan Partners:
Canaan Partners invests in visionary entrepreneurs and provides them the networks, insights and operational guidance required to build high-performance technology and healthcare companies. For 20 years, they have taken an active and committed role in the companies in which they invest, and have completed more than 69 mergers and acquisitions and 53 IPOs. With $3 billion under management and a worldwide footprint, the firm's technology team is committed to catalyzing the growth of innovative companies in the digital media, communications & mobility, enterprise and clean tech industries. Among its successes are DoubleClick, the leading online advertising solution, Match.com, the most popular online dating site in the world, CommerceOne, the company that pioneered B2B ecommerce; Capstone Turbine, first to market and world's leading producer of commercially viable microturbine energy products; and VOIP equipment supplier Acme Packet, which was one of the top ten performing tech IPOs of 2006. Other Canaan technology investments include Active Networks, BharatMatrimony, Blurb, Cortina, GroundWorks, ID Analytics, Tremor Media and SuccessFactors. Canaan has offices in California, Connecticut, India and Israel. For more information visit: www.canaan.com.
Contacts:
Alex Mehr
Zoosk, Inc.
alex @ zoosk.com
Phone: (301) 641-4319
Gina Vakili
Canaan Partners
gvakili @ canaan.com
Phone: (650) 854-8092
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