Dating app Grindr reveals its plans to go public


Grindra dating app for the public LGBTQ+announced on Monday its intention to go public in an operation that would initially value it at 2.1 billion dollars.

The platform used by some 11 million people each month thus hopes to raise 384 million dollars to invest in its infrastructure and monetization tools, to attract and retain more people, and diversify its income.

“We have a global brand present almost everywhere in the community we serve, an impressive size, an engagement rate from our users and an operational margin among the best in the industry, and we are just beginning our journey in terms of monetization and growth “He stressed Jeff Bonforte, head of Grindr, quoted in a statement.

The Californian company decided to go through a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company); a stock instrument that seeks capital for a subsequent purchase or merger with another company.

He highlighted its “mission at the service of the LGBTQ+ community” and its potential, indicating that its target market “is growing rapidly”, and that the application barely reaches “2%” of that market at the moment. He also noted that 80% of his profiles are under 35 years old.

Grindr however, it faces problems in several countries.

The US company recently appealed a record €6.3 million fine imposed on it by Norway for illegally sharing personal data.

Grindr handed over, without legal basis, personal data of its users to third parties for targeted marketing,” the Norwegian data protection authority estimated in December.

In other countries, the app is censored. It disappeared in January from app stores in China, where same-sex marriage is banned and issues LGBTQ they remain a taboo, although homosexuality is no longer criminalized since 1997.

Founded in 2009, Grindr once belonged to the Chinese online gaming specialist Kunlun Techwhich had to agree to resell it to a US firm in 2020, after pressure from the United States that invoked national security reasons.

A federal agency feared that US users would be victims of blackmail if the government demanded data (sexual orientation or HIV status, for example) from Kunlun Tech.

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