Month: April 2024
Grindr Hires Fitness App Founders as It Moves Beyond Dating
AXIOS – Grindr has hired the founders of Athena, a 2-year-old fitness community app. Athena co-founder and CEO AJ Wolf is joining Grindr as a senior manager of product finance, while co-founder and technology chief Max Roche is joining as a senior iOS engineer. Grindr has not acquired any of Athena's assets. According to CEO George Arison, Grindr aims to expand its app features into areas like travel and health.
Dating App Bindr Accepted Into AlphaLab Accelerator
TECHNICAL.LY – Mary Richardson, frustrated by her experiences on dating apps as a bisexual individual, co-founded Bindr in August 2022. The app, which has garnered 100K users, was recently accepted into Innovation Works' AlphaLab 2024 accelerator. Bindr allows users to interact without labeling themselves and incorporates social features like a grid view and timeline. After securing initial funding through pitch competitions, the co-founders are now seeking a $1.5M seed round, with a recent $100K infusion from AlphaLab.
by Atiya Irvin-Mitchell
See full article at Technical.ly
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com
Scott Valdez Turned Swiping Into a Career
NEW YORK POST – Matchmaking company Vida Select offers a service where employees, like Andrew Boese, swipe on dating apps on behalf of clients, handling all aspects of online dating for a fee. Boese, who has worked as a ghostwriter for the company for a decade, adopts various personas to match clients' preferences. Vida Select claims that typical dating app users spend ~12 hours a week on platforms, suggesting their service as a time-saving alternative. The company, founded in 2009 by Scott Valdez, who met his wife through the platform, charges clients upwards of $2,595 per month for their services.
Gen Z Prefer Digital First Dates
NEW YORK POST – A Wingman survey of 500 people aged 18 to 27 found that 65% of Gen Z prefer digital first dates, mainly for efficiency and cost-saving reasons. The trend, popularized during the pandemic, allows for quick compatibility checks and multiple dates without the expenses of dining out or transportation. However, it risks missing out on deeper, in-person connections.
Inside Grindr’s Plan to Squeeze Its Users
PLATFORMER – Since its IPO in 2022, Grindr has been on a rocky road financially. Its stock has fallen 70% since its SPAC. After hitting an IPO-high of $71.51, it currently sits at $10.13. Grindr plans to boost revenue by monetizing the app more aggressively, putting previously free features behind a paywall, and rolling out new in-app purchases. The company is currently working on an AI chatbot that can engage in sexually explicit conversations with users, according to employees with knowledge of the project. In Dec, Grindr announced a partnership with Ex-human, a startup that makes customizable chatbots, including an AI girlfriend and an AI dating coach. Grindr's push to monetize has prompted some employees to take a closer look at how the company calculates the number of paying users. Grindr had ~3.3M monthly active users in 2023, according to financial statements. It has an average of 937K paying users a month, according to its investor relations page. In Nov, an employee filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC, arguing that the company was inflating the number of paying users. Grindr denied the allegations.
Anupam Mittal Said He Purchased Shaadi.com Domain for $25K
INDIAN EXPRESS – Anupam Mittal, founder of Shaadi.com, said that dating sites like Bumble and Tinder are not making much progress in India. He expressed skepticism about their profitability, citing an imbalance in the dating scene. Contrary to popular belief, Mittal stated that millennials are a significant part of Shaadi.com's audience, challenging the notion that they prefer dating apps. He recently revealed that he paid $25K for Shaadi.com domain in the late 1990s, when his company had $30K in the account.