FriendFinder parent company Various Inc., has announced the acquisition of Spring Street Networks, the company powering private-label online dating portals for sites such as Nerve.com, TheOnion.com, and Salon.com.
Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, the move beefs up FriendFinder’s mainstream holdings. The company similarly beefed up its adult holdings, acquiring Legendary Lars’ cam network Streamray on March 23.
“This is a strategy for us, going forward this year and next, to look for synergistic companies that we can use to help leverage our current functionality and memberships. Anything related to personals or community building are definitely targets,” Various CEO Andrew Conru tells AVNOnline.com.
Conru says the company also has several other deals in the works.
Spring Street is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Various. Various will continue to operate Spring Street’s New York office and add to the company’s staff. Spring Street’s sites will not be associated with the FriendFinder network, but will reap the benefits of its technology.
“We’re able to create a much richer environment for dating, other than just a listing of personal ads, and those are some of the immediate benefits. We’ll be able to take our current technology and add that to Spring Street. We’re also going to be able to improve the conversions simply by different revenue models than they already have,” Conru says.
The acquisition took three months and was completed last week. Along the way, Conru has taken measures to assure Spring Street’s clients, which include magazines and newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, SFGate.com, that the adult side of Various will remain independent of its mainstream ventures.
“We’re very sensitive to the partners, letting them know that this is separate from our adult properties,” Conru says. “I don’t believe it is a problem, primarily because we have a very clear separation between our adult and nonadult properties.”
The personal model that Spring Street has created, which primarily caters to hipsters, will remain intact, but be beefed with additional functionalities developed by FriendFinder, Conru says.
“The acquisition by Various is great news for everyone and means our members will get access to the best technology, features, and customer service in the business,” says Rufus Griscom, CEO of Nerve.com.
