Dating app company The Meet Group purchased in $500M deal

New Hope-based dating app company The Meet Group announced Thursday morning that it had entered an agreement to be acquired by German media group ProSiebenSat.1 and private equity firm General Atlantic’s joint company NuCom Group.

The all-cash deal is worth $500 million, the Pennsylvania company said in a statement. It also values the public company’s shares at $6.30 per fully diluted share. (It closed last night at $6.82 a share.)

The Meet Group was founded about 15 years ago as MyYearbook. CEO Geoff Cook founded the company along with his brother and sister, and rebranded to MeetMe, then The Meet Group.

The company become a notable part of the Philly-area tech scene after launching MeetMe, one of the original social networking sites, and now apps. It’s also rolled out dating apps such as NextDate, a livestreaming dating game, and brought Growlr, a same-sex dating app, into its portfolio last year.

In 2018, the company opened a Center City office near 12th and Chestnut streets, where more than a dozen employees worked. Spokesperson Brandyn Bissinger told Technical.ly that none of its offices are expected to change.

“There are no planned layoffs,” she said. “In fact, we continue to actively hire, with a number of open positions posted. This deal is all about growth and mining the vast array of strategic opportunities.” The Meet Group currently has about 300 local employees.

The NuCom Group owns matchmaking platforms eharmony, Parship and Elite Partner.

“This transaction will allow us to tap new strategic growth opportunities by leveraging our video platform and ProSieben’s experience with content and entertainment,” Cook said in a statement.

The transaction will “diversify the revenue streams of both companies and increase their combined international footprint by broadening the companies’ user base,” the company said.

“Following a successful acquisition of eharmony, we have proven that we can manage new businesses and accelerate their growth by combining the best of both worlds,” said Tim Schiffers, CEO of the Parship Group. “We continue to consolidate our position in the online dating market and extend our business model by adding social entertainment.”

The transaction was approved unanimously by The Meet Group’s board of directors, and the deal is expected to close in Q2 of 2020. It is subject to approval by The Meet Group’s stockholders, pending antitrust approvals in the U.S. and Europe, the company said.