Category: All Gay

Foreign Office Warns Gay Tourists About Dangers Of Grindr Abroad

Posted on December 21, 2016

Grindr logo new dec 13PINK NEWS – Dec 21 – The UK Foreign Office has updated its guidance for LGBT tourists to warn about the dangers of using Grindr abroad. It now warns: "If you intend to visit cruising areas or use a dating app, find out about the local situation and take sensible precautions if you meet someone." It has been alleged that police in Egypt were exploiting Grindr and other dating sites to hunt members of the gay community, as part of a crackdown on homosexuality. Grindr took the step of directly warning users to be cautious. Channel 4 documentary Hunted also documented anti-gay vigilantes in Russia using hook-up apps to lure gay men to flats, where they would be attacked or sexually assaulted.

by Nick Duffy
See full article at Pink News

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Hornet Hires New General Managers For France, NY And Taipei

Posted on December 21, 2016

Hornet logo June 16PR NEWSWIRE – Dec 21 – Fabrice Le Parc has been named GM for France, Tim Greene for New York and Darien Chan for Taipei operations. Le Parc, Greene and Chan will lead business development and customer acquisition strategies for Hornet. Le Parc has worked as a web entrepreneur, having co-founded and sold various companies. He served as the MD for be2 before founding his own dating site, Smartdate. Greene and Chan are seasoned executives who have helped build businesses for numerous online properties through their combined experience in financial, marketing and technology services.

See full article at PR Newswire

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Building A Community, And An Empire, With A Gay Dating App In China

Posted on December 19, 2016

Blued Ma BaoliNY TIMES – Dec 16 – By day, Mr. Ma was a police officer in China with a wife. By night, he led a life as a gay man, running a website for gays. In 2012, his superiors at a police department uncovered his website and he resigned. He lost his job, his family was struggling to accept his sexuality, so Mr. Ma created Blued, now China's most popular gay dating app with an estimated value of $600M and ~3M active daily users. Blued is only beginning to make a profit; most of its services are free. Attracting advertising remains difficult. The company is trying to increase its revenue by expanding into gay travel and entertainment. The spending power of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in China is estimated at $460 billion, making them the largest market in Asia, according to LGBT Capital, an investment-management firm. Mr. Ma has set his sights on foreign markets, hoping to take on Grindr and Hornet but analysts said it would be difficult for the company to build a large following overseas.

by Javier C. Hernández
See full article at NY Times

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Gay Dating Apps Hornet And Blued Enter Global Partnership

Posted on December 18, 2016

Hornet blued logosPINK NEWS – Dec 18 – As part of the cooperation, Blued will be participating in an extension of the funding round to help expand upon the momentum and growth rates Hornet has been experiencing. Hornet raised $8M earlier this year from venture capital fund Ventech China. Hornet, founded in 2011, claims to be "the world's second largest gay social network" with 15M users, and 3M monthly active users.

by Joseph Patrick McCormick
See full article at Pink News

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Bumble Invests In Gay Dating App Chappy

Posted on December 14, 2016

Chappy logoTECH CRUNCH – Dec 14 – Bumble, the dating app that puts women in the driver's seat, has invested in gay dating app Chappy. The details were not disclosed but Bumble is the sole investor in the round and will take an equity stake. In exchange, Bumble will be offering product development and marketing support. Chappy is a gay dating app based in the UK.

by Fitz Tepper
See full article at Tech Crunch

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This post also appear on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Grindr Is Connected To A Serial Killer

Posted on December 1, 2016

Dating apps iconsHEATST.COM – Nov 30 – Gay dating app Grindr finds itself entwined in an unpleasant killing spree thanks to one of its users. Stephen Port – the "Grindr Serial Killer" as he is now known in the UK – has just been sentenced to life without parole after being found guilty of the murders of four young men in London in 2014 and 2015. As a result of Port's conviction, police are looking into 58 more suspicious deaths linked to sex drugs. After Port's arrest, several men came forward to testify that they had been drugged, or nearly drugged, by him. It is noteworthy that none of the men who survived meeting Port appeared to have complained to the police or Grindr about their negative experiences.

by Paul T. Horgan
See full article at HeatSt.com

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Just She App Review

Posted on November 24, 2016

Justshe iconPINK DATING SITES – Nov 24 – Just She is not only a dating application but a lesbian-friendly community. Even though Just She is free to download and use, some features need membership upgrade in order to be unlocked. Standard membership costs $39.99 per 1 month, while premium one cost $79.99 per 3 months. Users can try a VIP package which boosts up all features and tools, also gives them best searching results and much more for a $64.99.

See full article at Pink Dating Sites

Summarized by the IDEA team

Gay Dating App Hornet Raises $8M

Posted on November 23, 2016

Hornet logo June 16VENTURE BEAT – Nov 22 – Hornet has raised $8M in its first round of institutional financing. The Series A round was led by Shanghai-based VC firm Ventech China, and adds to the $500k angel round Hornet raised back in 2012. Hornet says that the cash will be used to "support rapid business growth and user adoption" around the world. Ventech China participated in the Series C round of China's gay dating app Blued in June this year. Blued is big in Asia, and has claimed to be twice as big as Grindr.

by Paul Sawers
See full article at Venture Beat

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Grindr Adds Fields For HIV Status

Posted on November 11, 2016

Grindr logo new dec 13THE BODY – Nov 9 – Grindr is adding optional HIV-related fields in user profiles, such as HIV status, last HIV test date, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use. Users won't be able to filter who they see in the app based on HIV status. Filling out the HIV status field is entirely optional.

by DJ Davis
See full article at The Body

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

After Settling Lawsuit, ChristianMingle Allows Gay Dating

Posted on November 7, 2016

Christianmingle logo new 2016READING EAGLE – Nov 6 – ChristianMingle.com opened to gay users after settling a lawsuit that claimed that it violated California's non-discrimination law. But the new search function likely won't prove very useful to gay men or women – the site now lets them view profiles of the same gender, but does not specifically show them fellow gay users. Parent company Spark Networks said it has no plans to advertise the site to gay Christians, or to go further to make the site work for gay or bisexual users.

by Julie Zauzmer
See full article at Reading Eagle

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team