IAC may have found its next big thing after Match
So you met your dream partner on Tinder, got hitched and now plan on having kids. Internet conglomerate IAC, which just revealed plans Thursday to fully spin off Tinder parent Match, has you covered for what’s next.
IAC said on Friday it had agreed to buy Care.com, a company that helps people find babysitters, housekeepers and caregivers for seniors and pets, for $500 million.
Shares of Care.com rose more than 13% on the news. IAC, which surged 8% Thursday on the Match separation announcement, was up slightly on Friday.
The acquisition is a clear sign that IAC, which has often described itself as an “anti-conglomerate,” thinks it has found a hot new growth opportunity.
“Family care is exciting new territory for us — and an accelerating market as demand for both child and senior care intensifies worldwide,” said Joey Levin, CEO of IAC, in a statement.
Care.com has nearly 375,000 paying families and the company claims that the “highly fragmented market for family care” is worth more than $300 billion in the United States.
IAC, whose chairman is media mogul Barry Diller, has a history of buying marketplace type businesses and incubating them before eventually spinning them off. IAC currently has a controlling stake in ANGI Homeservices, the parent of Angie’s List, Handy and HomeAdvisor.
The company also once owned Expedia, HSN and Ticketmaster before spinning them out into separately traded independent businesses. Ticketmaster is now part of Live Nation, and HSN merged with home shopping rival QVC to form Qurate.
Care.com will join three other rapidly growing businesses at IAC: video sharing and analytics tools company Vimeo, digital media firm Dotdash (the former About.com) and mobile app developer Mosaic Group, which owns iTranslate and Daily Burn.
IAC also recently bought a $250 million stake in car-sharing company Turo and it is the owner of Ask.com and other reference websites, as well as news and opinion site The Daily Beast.
