Paktor uses US$32.5 million in financing to expand into social entertainment

Mobile dating app Paktor has secured US$32.5 million in financing coled by K2Global and PT Media Nusantara Citra Tbk. Paktor Group will use the funding to further expand its product portfolio into social entertainment arena."Paktor Group has established itself as the go-to multi-asset platform that serves the needs of singles in the region," said Joseph Phua, CEO and co-founder of Paktor Group."We see a strong shift in user behaviour within the consumption of interactive media entertainment on mobile platforms and will put the muscle behind Paktor’s strong Asian network and mobile expertise to expand into new business lines within social entertainment, as we maintain our stronghold in region as the leading dating company and rich media content sharing network," he added.The new financing brings total capital raised to US$57.5 million and comes on the heels of a record-breaking year for Paktor Group during which revenues are expected to grow beyond 22x from 2015."K2Global is excited to support Paktor Group’s plans to extend their Asian leadership into the social entertainment arena," said Ozi Amanat, Managing Partner at K2Global. "The company has shown tremendous traction and growth over the past year to evolve into the dating powerhouse it is today. We’re confident that the team has both the passion and experience to propel the company forward to build the leading social entertainment platform in the region."Paktor Group’s dating products have just achieved the milestone of 20 million registered users. Its flagship app, Paktor, is localised for 14 different languages and since the introduction of inapp premium subscription services at the end of 2015. Over the last quarter, the Paktor app also launched several new features to drive user engagement and improved match rates.In July, it launched Paktor Rewards, a loyalty program for returning users to earn Paktor credits for performing in-app actions such as continuous visits over 7 consecutive days, having a complete user profile and swiping on at least 50 profiles within 24 hours.Later in August, Paktor Questions was introduced as a deeper dimension of interaction between users. Based on a set of 5 randomly polled questions, users may choose to perform a one-time guess on other user profiles via the Home Screen and 10 Paktor credits would be deposited for each correct guess.Last month, Paktor app added One-Touch Gifts, which effectively reduced the number of steps for users to send a Paktor virtual gift to indicate interest. These new features have been received warmly by users; completed Paktor profile ratings improved by 100% while App Stores’ review score improved to 4.5 stars.Meanwhile, Paktor’s offline bespoke matchmaking arm, GaiGai, has also experienced growth in Q3-2016. GaiGai currently boasts the largest premium matchmaking singles database in the region. QoQ and the group expects to accelerate this growth further as GaiGai enters more new markets in Asia.