SIFTED.EU – July 7 – Hinge is now dubbed the 'relationship app'. It currently ranks among the top three most downloaded dating apps across the US, Australia and the UK, and has rolled out a freemium model. The app launched in Feb 2013, quickly pivoting from desktop to mobile. Users didn't get it. Investors didn't get it. Funding proved a constant struggle for McLeod, and it would be three years until he could lure institutional money. "We really struggled for a long time to get investment… until Tinder started to take off. Hinge raked in $20M in those early years. Yet by 2016, when McLeod began raising his Series B, VCs had gone cold again. Part of the problem was Hinge had stalled. The app had gone dormant a year earlier as part of a reboot to move it away from swiping into serious matchmaking. "I was begging [VCs]… I was offering valuations that were embarrassingly low. I went everywhere trying to make this deal happen." It was a buyout that would eventually come to his rescue. In 2018, McLeod accepted Match.com's offer for a complete takeover. "I didn't really have a choice," McLeod admits. "In order for us to compete, we needed to raise a lot more money… There was kinda no other option than to find a strategic buyer like Match."
by Isabel Woodford
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