Investors get acquainted with Twinby – Kommersant FM
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The Russian dating market has attracted investors. A new dating service, Twinby, recently received funding of RUB 150 million. The platform was launched at the end of June, when Tinder finally stopped working in Russia. The company’s shareholders are former InDrive technical director Alexander Burtsev and Impact Capital. After the departure of large dating services, the number of users of their Russian counterparts increased. According to Vedomosti, the number of downloads in July increased by 20-30% year-on-year.
But so far, domestic dating platforms have not been able to occupy the entire niche, says Yaroslav Sergeev, an independent expert in the field of dating application development:
“In Russia, after the departure of Tinder and Badoo, which occupied about half of the entire market, a rather large window opened. The current leader, Mamba, has a fairly old brand, a high-quality product with good monetization. But this platform for young people does not look attractive; its niche is 35+. Therefore, a free position appeared for a youth application, and it was clear that someone would definitely take it. Twinby appeared. This player has no monetization, they don’t collect any money, and whether they can do it is a big question.
What is the price for investments then? There is an empty niche in the market, we need to fill it, and a finite amount of money is allocated for this. Occupying a niche means gaining a core audience and showing that you can monetize it. If the product does not show positive unit economics in a year and a half, I very much doubt that anyone will continue to invest in it. I think there will be more than one such player. There will probably be two or three more of them. Most likely, one of them will survive.”
In February 2022, almost 45% of downloads were from the Badoo and Tinder services, according to data from the analytical platform Sensor Tower. Currently, the Mamba dating platform is the leader in this indicator. However, in terms of audience coverage, according to Mediascope, it is overtaken by the FriendVokrug application.
The number of users has really grown noticeably recently, which is what attracts funding, says Andrei Bronetsky, general director of the Mamba service. However, investors should not count on a quick return on their investments, notes Kommersant FM’s interlocutor:
“Competition has become a little less for a short period of time. The market is developing because the Internet has been and remains a convenient place to meet people. Where do the main incomes of services come from now? There are no changes here: dating companies make money by selling additional services to users.
Typically they are packaged into a subscription. An older audience is more solvent because, in principle, they have more money, they understand what they are looking for, and, accordingly, are willing to pay for it. If we talk about a very young audience, then they are not interested in paying for dating. They just need to “like” it.
I think that the dating market will develop. The return on investment depends on how it will be used and what return expectations investors have. If they expect the money to be returned very quickly and with a large margin, many may probably be disappointed. But in general there is money in the market.”
Now Russian dating apps are actively investing in development abroad. By the end of 2023, the Mamba service planned to invest about $6.5 million in promoting the application in other countries, in particular in Europe.
The Teamo application focuses on attracting users from Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, and is ready to allocate up to $700 thousand for this. Online services are developing and will continue to be an attractive asset for investors in the future, says Leonid Delitsyn, an analyst at the Finam group of companies:
“They always look promising and attractive to investors because young people have been and will continue to be interested in them. And the new services that will replace them will also attract investment. They will be called “Twinby killers”, “Tinder killers” and so on.
Online dating services, as well as online communications, have gone through several generations of development. Both the audience and users, and along with them investors, are wondering: is there something new already? 150 million rub. in today’s times, this is already a small amount even for a start-up, especially for a start-up in the contracting sector, because it needs promotion. But this is enough to test the viability of the business model.”
According to forecasts by the analytical company Statista, in 2023 the total volume of the Russian dating application market could reach 4 billion rubles.
Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.
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