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Zoosk (SZ): Zoosk is an online dating service that serves users through numerous channels. We are present on all of the major social networks; we have our destination site on Zoosk.com; we have our mobile Web property, and an iPhone application, and we have a desktop client. From an investor’s perspective,

Zoosk is interesting in a few ways. First, Zoosk is the only global online dating company at this scale. The dating business has traditionally been a very local business because user acquisition was usually through old media, which required a lot of expertise in offline advertising conditions in each geographic market. So you have companies like Match.com and eHarmony that are very strong in the United States,
Meetic in Europe, RSVP in Australia, and so on. For the first time, we have leveraged social media to get a global reach without having an office in each country that we are presently active in. We are monetizing in 52 countries right now with the service localized in 20 languages.

Zoosk differentiates itself from the traditional dating sites by focusing on relatively younger audience and monetizing users through subscription and virtual currency. The company expects to maintain growth momentum in 2010 through more-aggressive user acquisition, international expansion, and a couple new products. KEY POINTS:

Since Zoosk uses social media and online as user acquisition channels, it has been able to establish a more-global footprint compared to other dating service sites. Zoosk’s user breakup is equally split between the United States, Western Europe, and rest of the world, and the top six or seven countries make up the majority of revenue.