MatchNet Seeks to Raise $100 Million in IPO

Beverly Hills-based MatchNet Inc., which operates dating websites AmericanSingles.com and JDate.com, said Wednesday that it planned a U.S. initial public stock offering.

The company filed a preliminary offering document with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise as much as $100 million by selling common stock.

Also on Wednesday, MatchNet said it lost more money in the second quarter as sales soared: The firm lost $4.1 million in the quarter compared with a loss of $736,000 a year earlier. Revenue was $15.8 million, up 88% from a year earlier.

MatchNet, founded in 1998, said that as of June 30 it had about 9.8 million active members, meaning people who have posted a profile or logged on at least once in the last year.

The company said its subscriber count was 235,000.

Subscribers to the AmericanSingles site pay a $24.95 monthly fee, and the monthly cost to use JDate, which targets Jewish singles, is $34.95. Users are offered discounts for longer-term subscriptions, the company said.

In the first half of this year, MatchNet said, it averaged about 5.3 million unique monthly online visitors, which according to an online rating study ranked the firm as the second-largest online personals provider among U.S. Internet users.

MatchNet said it chose investment bank J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to manage its stock offering. The firm didn’t say how many shares it planned to offer or give an expected price range.

The company already trades in Europe: It lists shares on the Frankfurt, Germany, exchange, where the price Wednesday was about $8.60 a share.