It seems that Marc Simoncini’s dating site is looking at internationalization in 2013 – they purchased Massive Media, which owns Twoo.com, one of Belgium’s largest dating sites, for $25M. In their announcement, originally caught by TNW, Meetic CEO Philippe Chainieux said:
This acquisition consolidates the MEETIC Group’s positions with a substantial increase in the number of users, and in particular mobile users. We were won over by the quality of Massive Media’s teams, and notably its founders Lorenz Bogaert and Toon Coppens.
Meetic says the acquisition will allow them to take a first step into Eastern Europe, as well as reinforce their position and portfolio in Western Europe. According to the announcement, Twoo, launched in April 2011, was seeing 9.6 million unique visitors (as of October 2012) and was available in 38 languages. The service’s freemium and social elements will help expand Meetic’s business modeland user acquisition methods as well.
The founders of Massive Media also own a non-dating property, Netlog, which achieved a certain notoriety as a top social network in Europe in the early 2000s.