M17 Entertainment, the parent company of Singapore-based dating and networking app Paktor, is heading to the New York Stock Exchange as it seeks to raise a total of $115 million in a proposed initial public offering (IPO).
According to a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, M17 Entertainment said it will use the proceeds of the planned IPO to finance the expansion of its business in Japan and other new markets.
It will also allocate funding for content development and to finance strategic merger and acquisition opportunities, although the company has not identified any targets yet.
The IPO will be underwritten by Citigroup, Deutsche Bank Securities, Daiwa Capital Markets and Mizuho Securities.
Led by veteran media and entertainment executives, M17 Entertainment operates the largest live streaming platform by revenue in Asia, with a market share of 19.2 per cent in the first quarter of this year. It also operates Paktor, which was launched in Singapore in 2013, and Goodnight, which are its main dating applications.
Paktor, founded by Joseph Phua in May 2013, is a personal dating app often dubbed the “Tinder of Southeast Asia”. Since then, Paktor has expanded beyond the shores of Singapore and launched its own offline dating service GaiGai.
M17 said Paktor serves its Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea markets while Goodnight serves the Taiwan market. Paktor has also offered offline matchmaking services in Singapore since May 2015 and in Taiwan since May 2015.
In March 2017, under a share swap agreement, all the existing shareholders of Paktor exchanged their respective shares, including all of the ordinary and preference shares, for equivalent classes of M17’s shares, making it the holding company of Paktor.
The total number of registered users on its dating applications grew to 14.6 million as of March 31, 2018 from 13.9 million and 11.0 million as of December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.
“We are in the process of integrating our live streaming platform into our online dating applications, and our integrated platform had 47.9 million registered users as of March 31, 2018, and 1.7 million average monthly active users in the three months ended,” the company said.
To further grow its business, M17 Entertainment said it will pursue several strategies, including growing in Japan and expanding into new markets, expanding content offerings to increase user engagement and loyalty, and reinventing traditional media in the markets it operates.
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