Attendees earlier this year at the Startups Thailand conference check out Noonswoon’s booth. Photo credit: Noonswoon.
Noonswoon, Thailand’s answer to Tinder, has been acquired by a rival dating app company. The startup, launched in 2013, was backed by 500 Startups and prominent Southeast Asian investor Golden Gate Ventures.
The app has brought about 15 marriages – and six kids.
Hong Kong’s Datetix is the buyer, giving 700,000 shares in its penny stock worth US$212,000, which the Thai startup won’t get its hands on until two years later, according to today’s announcement from Datetix. (Updated: Note that the acquisition amount is less than the US$400,000 raised in September 2013. It’s unclear if the investors made a loss; 500 Startups and Golden Gate Ventures have not yet replied to my query.)
The news comes just over three months after Datetix bought up UK-based Lovestruck.
Noonswoon co-founder and CEO Kavin Mickey Asavanant, a former engineer at Apple and Microsoft with a computer science major from Stanford, tells Tech in Asia that the app has created 350,000 dating connections. “There are 120 Noonswoon couples, 15 Noonswoon marriages – I went to 3 weddings personally – and 6 Noonswoon kids in the world,” he says.
Kavin Mickey Asavanant co-founded Noonswoon in 2013. Photo credit: Kavin’s Facebook.
His app will continue to operate as normal, with the startup team now effectively the Bangkok branch of the Hong Kong company. “We are recruiting more people,” adds Kavin. That’s because expansion is on the cards for the Tinder-esque app. “With the new resources and knowhow, we are adjusting the app so that it can appeal to more people, particularly where Datetix has presence in Hong Kong, China, and the UK.”
Focusing solely on the Thai market, Noonswoon has grown to 180,000 registered users and 1,600 paying users, but the number of active users isn’t disclosed.
Datetix said today that it’s aiming at Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and India in 2017 – which may mean expanding its suite of apps or acquiring startups in those countries.
Converted from Australian dollars. Rate: US$1 = A$1.32.
Editing by Osman Husain
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