Hinge – Page 39 – Online Personals Watch

Tinder Could Change The Way Investors Think About Online Dating

Posted on March 26, 2015

QZ.COM – Mar 25 – In March, Tinder announced it was moving to monetize its service with Tinder Plus. For a company said to be valued at ~$1B, the move was inevitable, but also risky. Tinder has built its reputation and user base around a casual, fun and totally free-of-charge experience. Competitors will likely be keeping a close eye on whether Tinder is able to cash in on its estimated 50M+ active users. “Tinder is certainly setting the pace and is kind of the bellwether for whether these apps can be monetized,” said Justin McLeod, CEO of dating app Hinge. “The investment dollars are going to depend going forward on whether Tinder is able to monetize.”

by Ryan Bort
See full article at QZ.com

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Hinge Makes India Debut

Posted on March 19, 2015

FINANCIALEXPRESS – Mar 19 – After being launched in London last month, dating app Hinge will now be available to smartphone users in India. Hinge, which has so far raised $20M, is also open for a strategic partnership in India. “While we do not plan to raise any more funds at the moment, we are looking at regional partnership that would help in building our app’s presence in the country,” added Justin McLeod, CEO, Hinge.

by Anushree Bhattacharyya
See full article at FinancialExpress

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‘Hinge’ Comes To Canada

Posted on February 26, 2015

GLOBALNEWS – Feb 26 – 30-year-old CEO Justin McLeod said Hinge is more like meeting people at a “friend’s house party” than the random matching that goes on in many other apps in the marketplace. Hinge shows a list of about 20 potential dates once a day that’s curated from friends of friends. Toronto is the first Canadian city where Hinge launched on today.

by Erika Tucker
See full article at Global News

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Why Are The Founders Of Grindr And Hinge Still Single?

Posted on February 23, 2015

NY POST – Feb 22 – Joel Simkhai, the founder of Grindr, is still single despite his success setting others up. So is Justin McLeod, the founder of Hinge. “The number one question I get if they’re a Grindr user is, ‘Do you have access to my chats? What do you know about me?’” says Simkhai. Justin McLeod’s doesn’t mention he’s the CEO either. He says he’s been in multiple relationships thanks to Hinge, some lasting a few months. Still, he says, “If I were an expert at dating I would not have started a dating site.” Simkhai agrees. “One of the reasons I started Grindr was that no one ever set me up!”

by Jennifer Wright
See full article at NY Post

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Rise Of Niche Tinders

Posted on February 17, 2015

TECH CRUNCH – Feb 17 – Tinder-like app keep popping up. There is Hinge for yuppies, The League for elitists, Bumble for shy guys, The Catch for wordsmiths, Meld for black professionals, Willow for those who care about personality not looks, HeavenlySinful for those who want to get laid, etc. Right now, Tinder seems to be sticking with its one-app-fits-all approach with no plans on catering to niches. It’d be wise for IAC to at least explore the idea of building its own Micro-Tinders, adding some more segmentation into its main app. There are a lot of hot people to swipe right, but finding someone who is a good match can take plenty of train wreck dates. Better sorting preferences could connect people who are actually compatible.

by Josh Constine
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Hinge Launches In London

Posted on February 13, 2015

VENTURE BEAT – Feb 12 - Hinge is today launching outside the U.S. for the first time, kicking off in London. Hinge uses Facebook to match people with friends-of-friends. Hinge will be launching in Canada soon as well.

by Paul Sawers
See full article at Venture Beat

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Which Dating Sites Received The Best And Worst PR In 2014?

Posted on February 7, 2015

CB – Feb 7 – A lot of companies that traditionally receive a lot of press hits appeared to be lacking this year, including POF, Badoo, SNAP Interactive and Zoosk. Tinder got the most press coverage in 2014, followed by Match.com. Articles mainly highlighted Tinder's impressive growth. It also scored some negative press, most notably the Whitney Wolfe lawsuit. We heard a little less about eHarmony last year, but they still received solid press coverage thanks to their new eH+ service and the announcement of a plan to launch a "jobs matchmaker". OkCupid, as usual, made the list along with AshleyMadison, Grindr and Hinge. There were also companies with more sad than good news. Cupid was one of them. They sold their casual dating sites in 2013, posted weak 2013 annual results, tried unsuccessfully to revive their business, and even launched new services such as LoveBeginsAt and dating app Tangle. In December the news came out that the company decided to sell the remaining mainstream dating sites and quit the dating business. It was not an easy year for Spark Networks either. After some bad news for investors, a fight between the company leadership and Osmium partners began, ending in July with Osmium appointing 4 new directors to the Spark´s board. CEO Greg Liberman left the company in August and layoffs began in September.

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Led By Tinder, The Mobile Dating Game Surges

Posted on February 5, 2015

NY TIMES – Feb 4 – Many app makers are trying to capitalize on the Tinder method of simple, smartphone-based dating. They add a twist to the swipe. Hinge sifts only through Facebook connections for friends of friends. Clover offers Tinder-like features but with an added bonus called “On-Demand Dating.” Users pick a location and a date, and Clover sends someone to meet them. Tinder processes ~1B swipes a day and matches ~12M people a day. Amarnath Thombre, president of Match.com in North America, said that in the last year it had registered a 35% increase in the people who use Match app, and a 109% increase in the number of people who use only the app to reach Match every month.

by Molly Wood
See full article at NY Times

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Hinge Raises $12 Million

Posted on December 12, 2014

MASHABLE – Dec 11 – Mobile startup Hinge has raised $12M in Series A funding. Hinge had previously brought in $8.6M in seed funding and convertible notes. Shasta Ventures led the round, along with previous investors including Lowercase, Great Oaks, Eniac and CAA ventures. The funding will be used to bring the app into more markets. Hinge is currently available in 28 cities, 24 of which were launched in 2014. The company recently brought in former Spotify employee Eric Bogs to heads up its engineering team.

by Jason Abbruzzese
See full article at Mashable

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Hinge Is Giving Tinder A Run For Its Money

Posted on October 23, 2014

BUSINESS INSIDER – Oct 22 – Like Tinder, Hinge lets users see profiles of single people nearby. They can like or nix a profile. Unlike Tinder, Hinge only connects friends of friends. At the end of 2012, Hinge only had $32K left in the bank. Justin McLeod's, Hinge's founder and CEO, raised $100K a few months prior, but only a few thousand people were using it. $25,000 went to a hail-mary pass: a massive 2K-person launch party in Washington. Two weeks before the party, Apple rejected Hinge's app. The morning of the party, Apple finally approved the app. Hinge is now one of New York's hottest startups. In July Hinge raised $4.5M, bringing its total funding to $8.6M. The app makes ~8M matches a month. (Tinder, by comparison, makes 15M matches per day).

by Alyson Shontell
See full article at Business Insider

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