INSTINCTMAGAZINE – June 28 – In commemoration of National HIV Testing Day, gay dating app Hornet has launched an ad campaign featuring the experience of people living with HIV.
by Nigel Campbell
The full article was originally published at Instinct Magazine, but is no longer available.
VICE.COM – June 7 – It only takes a quick scroll through gay dating apps to see guys who express dismay with them; statements like "no hookups," and "no unsolicited nudes" are common in user profiles. That dissatisfaction is reflected in Grindr's 2.5-star rating on the Apple App store. Chappy claims to be different. Launched this year in London, and funded by Bumble, Chappy lets users toggle between categories called "Mr. Right" and "Mr. Right Now". Chappy isn't the only app trying to distance itself from the hookup culture. Hornet and Scruff are launching new features to introduce new ways to interact beyond hooking up, such as Facebook-style activity feed.
by Jon Shadel
See full article at Vice.com
See all posts on Chappy See all posts on Grindr
See all posts on Hornet See all posts on Scruff
PR 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.
PINK 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
VENTURE 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
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
PR NEWSWIRE – July 5 – "With the acquisition of Vespa, Hornet will provide the most innovative set of apps to the 250M strong consumer segment of gay men worldwide, and will be able to extend its innovation lead by integrating gay places and events in 300 cities in 70 countries worldwide into its products." Vespa's founder and CEO Christof Wittig, who co-founded Hornet in 2011, has been appointed the new CEO, while co-founder Sean Howell is now Chairman and President of Hornet. With 15M total and 3M monthly active users, Hornet is the second largest gay social network worldwide after Grindr.
See full article at Hornet Blog
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
GAY TIMES – June 8 – While they've promised to keep their traditional grid feature they're also offering up Discover and the Activity Feed. With Discover users can browse guys that have similar interests and use hashtags to make searches more effective, as well as 'New Guys' and 'Who Checked You Out' features.
by Anthony Sinclair
See full article at Gay Times
WIRED – May 20 – Computer researchers in Kyoto, Japan discovered a stalking method which is cheap, reliable, and works not only with Grindr but other gay dating apps like Hornet and Jack'd. It's known as trilateration. If Grindr or a similar app tells you how far away someone is—even if it doesn't tell you in which direction—you can determine their exact location by combining the distance measurement from three points surrounding them. In the US that's not a problem but in Islamic countries or in Russia, it can be very serious that their information is leaked like that.
In late 2014, Grindr responded to security researchers who pointed out that risk by offering an option to turn off the app's distance-measuring feature, and disabling it by default in countries known to have "a history of violence against the gay community". The lingering issue, however, remains: All three apps still show photos of nearby users in order of proximity.
GAYSTARNEWS – July 11 – Samsung and Google Play have taken down gay networking apps including Jack'd in South Korea. Samsung refuses to list apps like Hornet, Grindr or Scruff in its country owing to 'local moral values.' Jack'd has ~500K users in South Korea.
