Badoo is a dating-focused social discovery website, founded in 2006.It is managed out of its Soho, London headquarters but owned by a company in Cyprus and ultimately by Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev.The site operates in 180 countries and is most active in Latin America, Spain, Italy and France. Badoo ranks as the 52nd most popular site in France and the 117th globally, according to Alexa Internet. In July 2011, Badoo.com ranked as the 59th most visited website in the world with 46 million Unique Visitors per month, ahead of CNN.com in 60th position. Badoo grows by 150,000 new registrations per day.In a peer-reviewed study of 2009, it was given the lowest score for privacy among 45 social networking sites examined.Badoo was founded by serial entrepreneur Andrey Andreev and launched in London in November 2006.In January 2008, the Russian investor Finam Capital paid US$30 million for a 10% stake in Badoo. The funding will be used to build Badoo in Russia, where the social networking market is beginning to grow.As of 2009, Finam now has 20% ownership of Badoo.In September 2011, The Economist wrote an article explaining how Badoo has a shot at becoming "one of Europe’s leading internet firms" and that Badoo seems to have discovered a large new market.As of November 2011 Badoo claims to have over 130 million registered users of which 6 million are from the US.According to their website faq, Badoo claims to employ over 200 people internationally.In April 2011 Badoo was threatened by Facebook with an audit and potential removal if it didn't make its Facebook app less viral.According to Insidefacebook.com, during the week of January 11, Badoo was ranked 17th in growing Facebook apps.Badoo held its official USA launch on March 23, 2012 with Nick Cannon helping to introduce the service in the US.In April 2012, the company entered into a marketing agreement with the site Hot or Not to display its members in the companies service.On April 19, 2012, Badoo announced it had appointed long-time Google executive Benjamin Ling as Chief Operating Officer to push its mobile and web platforms and US growth.In May 2012, the company announced it had exceeded 150 million registered users.