Zoosk attracts $30 million from investors

Rapidly growing online dating site picks up Series D from Bessemer Venture Partners

Zoosk, an online dating site, announced on Thursday it raised $30 million in Series D funding.  The round was led by new investor Bessemer Venture Partners, while existing investors Canaan Partners and ATA Ventures also participated.  Just back in June of this year, the company raised $6 million, but is seeing some significant growth and obviously attracting the eyes of investors.

You may be thinking, just another dating site.  But actually, this startup has quite a different model than the subscription-based Match.com and eHarmony.

First of all Zoosk is free to sign up and start looking around for potential dates.  Once a user finds someone they are interested in, they have all sorts of options like buying Zoosk coins to send virtual gifts, or even paying to read private emails.  There's also ways for users to pay to come up at the top of search results, and finally, Zoosk also offers premium memberships.

All these options for making money are actually paying off.  The company said it recently hit a $30 million run rate based on revenue booked for the sale of Premium memberships, millions of transactions in its economy, and advertising.  

The company boasts itself as the world's largest and fastest-growing online dating service with around 40 million singles signed up from more 40 countries.  This is probably due in part that Zoosk has several entrance points as users can join via social networking sites: Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5 and Friendster.  

San Francisco-based, Zoosk plans to use the funds support its growing user base, continue global expansion with marketing in key geographies, and invest in new features and apps.