Cupid dating site founders see value of firm treble to £175m

IT MAY only have been in business for five years and have a head office workforce of just 20, but the dramatic success of dating business Cupid has seen the two businessmen who founded it amass one of the quickest fortunes in Scottish corporate history.

On Friday, shares in the company behind websites such as benaughty.com and flirt.com soared by 9.1 per cent to close at 216.5p, their highest-ever level and more than three times the 60p price put on the shares when they were floated on the Alternative Investment Market last June.

The Edinburgh company's market value has risen from 45 million to almost 175m, some three times the value of broadcaster STV and within touching distance of the likes of stock market veterans such as Robert Wiseman Dairies.

The dramatic growth of the company values the combined stake of the founders - maths graduate Bill Dobbie and doctor Max Polyakov - at 83m. They have already banked 7m after selling shares to meet strong institutional demand.

Dobbie, 52, is a serial technology entrepreneur who had previously co-founded the Glasgow-based internet firm Iomart and was a director of Demon Internet. He teamed up with 33-year-old Polyakov, who qualified as a doctor in Ukraine before setting up a technology company and moving to the UK in 2004.

Although the shares have performed strongly since they joined Aim, recent weeks have seen the most spectacular growth. The shares have soared by more than 70 per cent in the past fortnight following a trading statement which noted that international expansion was ahead of expectations.

Dobbie, whose stake is worth more than 43m, owns just under a quarter of Cupid. He said increasing global acceptance and credibility of the online dating industry was a major factor in fuelling strong growth at the firm which now owns sites in the US, India and Europe and carries out most of its development work at a base in Ukraine.

The company changed its name from EasyDate after a legal challenge from the owner of EasyJet. It trebled its revenues last year to 25.7m as a string of acquisitions extended its reach to include 23 million customers worldwide. Underlying profit soared by 367 per cent to 5.6m.

Paul Morland, an analyst at broker Peel Hunt, which last week named the company as one of its "core" technology picks in the UK, says the firm could generate 50m in sales this year.

He said: "The key to this success continues to be a class-leading software platform, combined with highly-effective online advertising in a growth market."

The Cupid success represents the second fortune built by Dobbie who made millions from selling shares in Aim-quoted Iomart. The success of Cupid has also made millions for Angus MacSween, the chief executive of Iomart and Dobbie's brother-in-law, who banked 2.5m by selling part of his stake in May, but still holds shares worth about 5.4m.