ProSieben buys eHarmony US dating

B2C digital. Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 TV group has acquired US online dating site eHarmony, in the first significant deal of its new e-commerce joint venture with General Atlantic, the US private equity firm which once helped Axel Springer to build-up its global classifieds business. The Munich-based broadcaster bought eHarmony via its newly-created NuCom division, in which General Atlantic took a 24.9% stake in February. NuCom in turn owns 94% of Parship. eHarmony, which was founded in 2000 in Los Angeles and expects to register 2.8m new users this year, complements ProSieben’s own Parship dating franchise, which is said to be the market leader in Germany. Parship and sister brand ElitePartner claim some 2m registrations a year. The transaction follows through on ProSieben’s push to diversify away from its core commercial TV franchise, where ad revenues are flat amid disruption by Netflix et al. Privately-held eHarmony has raised a total of $113m in two funding rounds, the most recent being in 2004, when it was backed by The services will now expand into the US, Canada and Australia. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but it is rumoured to have valued eHarmony at only $85m. Rival Match has a market value of $13.7bn. The 18-year-old listed company ProSiebenSat.1 claims to be the leading German entertainment player, and has a strong e-commerce business: “We want to offer great entertainment – whenever, wherever and on any device. Every day, 45m TV households in Germany, Austria and Switzerland enjoy our 14 free and pay TV channels.” ProSiebenSat.1 claims to generate more than 1bn online video views per month and to invest more than €1bn euros in 120,000 hours of TV programming.