TORONTO -- Users of online dating service PlentyOfFish won't see much change despite the company's sale to the New York-based Match Group, says PlentyOfFish founder Markus Frind.

The Match Group, owner of Match.com, OkCupid and Tinder, announced on Tuesday that it bought the Vancouver-based dating website for US$575 million in cash.

Frind said there was no individual reason he decided to sell the company, but the time seemed right.

"The company is growing extremely quickly; we're at the top of the market," he said in an interview. "I also have a daughter that's now 10 months old. You start measuring your time in different increments."

Frind said users of PlentyOfFish's free matchmaking service will see little difference, though he will apply what the Match Group has learned over the past decade to the user experience on his own website.

"We'll have access to more data and knowledge within the greater group," he said.

In a news release, Sam Yagan, CEO of Match Group, says the company was attracted to PlentyOfFish's consistent growth and added it plans to integrate the Canadian company's mobile app into its existing family of digital and online dating services.

PlentyOfFish has steadily lured in people seeking everything from no-strings-attached hookups to marriage since Frind launched the company from his Vancouver apartment in 2003.

Frind, the sole owner of PlentyOfFish, says he'll stay on as CEO and plans to concentrate on expanding the company's mobile audience. Eighty per cent of PlentyOfFish's traffic now comes from mobile devices.

In March of this year, PlentyOfFish surpassed 100 million users, and the company employs more than 70 people at its downtown Vancouver office.

The Match brands and PlentyOfFish both generate revenue through a combination of advertising and paid subscription options.

PlentyOfFish, however, offers a free service that allows users to access features such as messaging and advanced search options that other sites put behind a paywall. The company generates most of its revenue through advertising.

The Match Group offers dating products through nearly 50 brands in 40 languages around the world, and says it has seven million new users per month.

IAC, the parent company of Match Group, owns a variety of media and Internet properties including the Princeton Review, Investopedia, Vimeo and the Daily Beast.

The Match Group says the deal is subject to approval from the federal industry minister and is expected to close in the fall.

Statistics Canada says there are more than 14 million single Canadian adults, a huge market for online matchmakers. In 2011, a Leger Marketing survey found that 36 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 18 and 34 say they've participated in online dating.

Mark Berber, a psychiatrist and relationship expert who teaches at the University of Toronto, said that online dating has become an accepted part of modern-day romance.

But Berber cautions that the smorgasbord of options presented by online dating can lead to trouble.

"It's like going into a candy store," he said. "Because we've got so much choice, there's a risk you won't give individual relationships the time to develop and blossom."