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New Hope-based dating app company the Meet Group is seeing “explosive overnight” growth in users drawn to its signature live video products as millions of people in the U.S. and Europe fall under stay-at-home orders and seek out new ways of connecting with people online. 

CEO Geoff Cook said the company, which owns dating apps MeetMe, Skout, Taggd and Growlr, as well as European app Lovoo, has seen a 22% increase in the time users are spending watching live video streams and a 25% increase in video chats per day. Meet (NASDAQ: MEET) has stood out in the industry for its livestreaming video products, which Cook was inspired to roll out in recent years after seeing the success of similar features in Asia. The company sees about 5 million daily active users and 18 million monthly active users across all of its apps.

All of those apps except Growlr, a niche gay dating app Meet acquired about a year ago, allow users to host livestreams and accept virtual “gifts” viewers buy. Streamers can later redeem the gifts for cash. The focus on video has helped Meet shift its primary revenue source from advertising to user payments by creating a business with an $82 million annual revenue run rate. 

Now in response to growing demand for video, Cook said they company is speeding up a planned roll out of live video on Growlr in the next month, which he said will make it the first video-enabled gay dating app. It’s also adding one-on-one video chats for apps that didn’t yet have the feature. The company, which has gamified livestreaming with a “Battles” feature that pits two streamers against each other for votes and recently launched a dating show called NextDate, is also working on a new blind date feature. 

“The video aspect, the focus of our business, is resilient,” he said. “Because people are spending more time at home and they’re looking for community and connecting, they’re finding it in the set of video solutions we have. We’ve had more NextDate games than we’ve ever seen. It has certainly been additive to the video side of things.” 

Meet’s strategy in recent years has been to acquire dating apps like Growler and Lovoo and enable them with video, but it recently began offering a video platform-as-a-service, or vPaaS, to other dating app companies so it could further monetize the product without the need for acquisitions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven that business as well, with rival dating app company Match Group using it to add livestreaming to its own Plenty of Fish app. 

“As a dating app, our business is in a unique position to innovate quickly to combat the anxiety singles may be feeling right now,” said Plenty of Fish CEO Malgosia Green in a statement. “I'm excited to offer this free feature to our members in the hopes it allows people to have fun and build meaningful relationships virtually, while face-to-face interaction is temporarily limited."

Match had previously been rumored as interested in acquiring Meet. But earlier this month Meet announced on it agreed to be acquired by NuCom Group for $500 million.

NuCom is a joint company owned by Germany's ProSiebenSat.1 and private equity firm General Atlantic. NuCom is the owner of dating site eharmony, as well as Parship and Elite Partner.

Cook said the ongoing COVID-19 crisis hasn’t affected the sale, currently going through regulatory approvals in the U.S. and Europe. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter. 

Meet also surveyed its users to gauge their take on the pandemic and found: 

• 67% of Democrats surveyed believe the U.S. is handling the COVID-19 pandemic worse than other countries vs. 59% of Republicans that say we are handling it better.
• 73% of Republican users believe the economy should re-open, even if it means more people could get sick and die vs. 80% of Democrats who say no.
• 47% of Democrats are more worried about catching the COVID-19 virus vs. 35% of Republicans.
• 78% of all surveyed users are following the government rules and staying home everyday
• 70% are not afraid to order delivery or take-out from area restaurants
• 44% say they are watching more television/live streaming shows
• 34% say they are working out less and overall engaging in smaller amounts of physical activity
• 29% say their diet has declined in the last two weeks

Cook said its users also reported being optimistic that social distancing restrictions would be lifted sooner than later, with about saying they expect to go on a date in 30 days. 

That’s not likely to happen, he said, but the results show how people are still adjusting to a new way of living. President Trump on Sunday extended federal social distancing guidelines until April 30.

“There is no normal. There’s the old normal, but people have not made this the new normal yet, and they still believe it’s going to end very soon,” he said.

To Cook, it’s hard to imagine not seeing disruptions on some level for the next 18 months, especially as different locations see ebbs and flows in outbreaks of cases. 

“They’re just going to be a part of life I think, and video obviously has a role to play,” Cook said. “People are on video for everything, Netflix, Zoom, school work, and now they’re doing their dating there too.” 

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