Zoosk
 |
|
| Private | |
| Industry | Consumer services |
| Founded | Fremont, California, U.S. (2007) |
| Founder | Alex Mehr Shayan Zadeh Brad Henrickson John Smart |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
| Services | Online dating service |
| Revenue |
 US$178.23 million (2013) |
|
US$ -2.62 million (2013) |
|
|
Number of employees
|
174 (April 2014) |
| Website | zoosk |
Zoosk is an online dating service available in 25 languages and in more than 80 countries. The founders of the company are Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr, who ran the company until December 2014. After struggles that year, Kelly Steckelberg became the company's new CEO.
Zoosk launched in December 2007. Its co-founders, Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr, were the company's original CEOs. Zadeh and Mehr met as undergraduates at Sharif University of Technology in Iran and travelled to the US together to attend graduate school at the University of Maryland. Zadeh worked at Microsoft after graduating with a master's degree from University of Maryland in computer science, which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. Mehr earned his master's degree and PhD and later worked for NASA. Mehr attended business school at the University of California at Berkeley, but he dropped out to work on Zoosk.
In April 2014, Zoosk filed S-1 paperwork for an initial public offering as it seeks to raise $100 million in capital. In the S-1, the company reported 2013 revenues of $178.2 million, a 63% increase over the previous year, and that it had cut losses 87% to $2.6 million. It has 27 million members, of which 650,000 were paying subscribers, and its membership was growing 44% year-over-year. Zoosk had reached the position of no. 1 grossing dating app and a top 25 grossing app on the Apple iOS App Store.
Despite $200 million in revenue collected in 2014, as well as a profit the previous year, Zoosk lost money in 2014. This is due to the company overspending on expansion and overhiring. The company was also operating on the start-up principle that profits do not matter. With these problems at the company, Zoosk canceled its IPO in December. In January 2015, they laid off 15% of their staff. To improve revenue, the company decided in November 2014 to require a paid membership to send messages.
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Wikipedia