The Match Group said Monday it hopes to raise as much as $466.2 million in its upcoming initial public offering, valuing the owner of online dating brands Tinder and OkCupid at $3.1 billion.
Match announced in a regulatory filing that it would sell about 33.3 million shares at between $12 and $14 per share. Underwriters will have a 30-day option to buy an additional five million shares.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Match’s parent company IAC/InterActiveCorp, is seeking to cash in on the booming market for online dating. Match, which counts 59 million monthly active users, reported $888.3 million in revenue in 2014, up about 11% from the previous year.
“The dating market presents a significant opportunity for Match Group,” the filing said, describing the company as “the world’s leading provider of dating products.”
Match predicts that the market of adults who are not in a committed relationship and have Internet access will increase from approximately 511 million people to approximately 672 million people by 2019.
The company said it currently sells about 2% of the ads that it could run on Tinder, but that it intends to “meaningfully increase” the number of ads it sells on the dating app. Tinder’s “strong user engagement” — 9.6 million daily active users who spend an average of 35 minutes a day on the app — “makes it a very attractive platform for advertisers,” Match said in a statement.
According to the filing, Tinder had 583,000 paid members as of the end of September, six months after its launch.
Match is the second high-profile tech IPO pricing in as many weeks. Last week, Square offered just over 31 million shares at a maximum of $13 apiece for a total value of up to $403.7 million.
IAC has bought a number of dating sites over the last few years, including PlentyofFish for $575 million last month. Chairman Barry Diller’s strategy was “to build scale by acquiring a portfolio of brands — now 45 in all — and eventually spin them off under the Match umbrella,” The New York Times said.
Match, which disclosed the plan to go public in June, is selling 14% of itself in the IPO, but IAC will maintain control.