Category: Outlets – INC

Looking for a CEO Successor? Check Your Board of Directors

Posted on August 31, 2026
Match Group Spencer Rascoff

INC –  When Match Group was looking for a new CEO, they chose Spencer Rascoff, one of their board directors, to run the company. Rascoff joined the board in March 2024. Previously, he was a cofounder and CEO of real estate platform Zillow and cofounder of discount booking site Hotwire. Match Group realized that those experiences made Rascoff an ideal candidate to lead the company. In February 2025, the board named him CEO, replacing Bernard Kim, who stepped down amid disappointing financial results and pressure from activist investors. A report suggests that companies often pluck CEOs from their boards when they don’t have a succession plan in place, but some experts believe a director can be the best choice to lead a company. To revive Tinder, Rascoff has increased marketing spend and product innovation speed. Under Rascoff, Match Group has also acquired HER, the dating app for queer women, and made a $100M investment in Sniffies, a map-based cruising platform for queer men.

See full article at INC

Match Group Settles FTC Case Over Alleged Sharing of OkCupid User Data for AI Training

Posted on April 1, 2026
OkCupid

INC –  Match Group has agreed to settle an FTC lawsuit alleging that OkCupid shared millions of users’ personal data, including photos, with Clarifai in 2014 to train facial recognition systems without proper consent, despite privacy policies suggesting otherwise. The data reportedly included ~3M images along with demographic and location information. Under the settlement, Match must improve how it discloses and handles user data and implement compliance measures under oversight. The company does not admit wrongdoing, and the agreement is pending court approval.

See full article at INC

Schmooze, an India-based AI-powered Dating App, Raises $4M

Posted on September 18, 2024

SchmooozeINC42 – Schmooze, a meme-based dating app from India, has raised $4M in a Series A funding round led by Elevation Capital. Founded in 2021, Schmooze matches users based on their meme preferences and sense of humor. The platform, which originally launched in the US before focusing on India, has attracted ~1M users in 10 months. The fresh capital will be used to enhance AI capabilities, scale user acquisition, expand content offerings, and target Tier II and III cities.

by Krithika K L
See full article at INC42

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com

In Online Dating, Being an Entrepreneur Is an Advantage

Posted on August 24, 2021

Okcupid logo 2021INC – Aug 24 – According to data from OkCupid, more people have been proudly owning the title "entrepreneur" while looking for love online this past year, says Melissa Hobley, the company's global CMO. And for some, it's a clear advantage. From July 2020 to July 2021, use of the terms "entrepreneur" and "self-employed" in the US OkCupid profiles increased by 10%. And users who identify themselves as entrepreneurs in their profiles have a better chance of getting a match's phone number, according to the company.

by Sophie Downes
See full article at INC

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Selective Search – Executive Matchmaking Business

Posted on February 16, 2020

Selectivesearch logo 2020INC – Feb 14 – Executives and entrepreneurs pay upward of $250,000 for Barbie Adler's exhaustively curated matchmaking service. Adler, a former executive recruiter, founded Chicago-based Selective Search in 2000. The company, which employs 40 people, has annual revenues north of $10M. It claims an 87% success rate, which works out to ~4K happy couples–1,800 of them married–to date. Roughly a third met "the one" on their first introduction. The process begins with a tell-us-everything intake interview: 15 pages of questions. Potential matches undergo the same in-depth personal interviews as clients. ~30% of Selective Search's clients are women, who also make up the company's fastest-growing category.

by Leigh Buchanan
See full article at INC

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Bumble’s Founder Is on a Mission to Clean Up the Internet

Posted on March 2, 2019

Bumble whitney wolfe 2019INC – Mar 2 – A bill was introduced Thursday in the Texas House of Representatives that would make sending an unsolicited nude or sexual photograph a misdemeanor punishable with a fine up to $500. Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble, put the spotlight on so-called cyberflashing. "Right now the Internet is the Wild Wild West. It's ridiculous that there is no accountability online for things you are not allowed to do in the real world," said Wolfe Herd. "We are trying to make a law for indecent exposure, but for the digital realm." A few months ago Wolfe Herd hired a lobbyist to help seed the idea. On Thursday Texas Rep. Morgan Meyer, a Republican from Dallas, took up the issue and introduced a bill that would add to the state penal code an offense "of unlawful electronic transmission of sexually explicit visual material." As written and if passed, the bill would take effect September 1, 2019.

by Christine Lagorio-Chafkin
See full article at INC

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Study: 10% Of Americans Are Paying For Dating Apps

Posted on February 15, 2016

Inc article mapINC.COM – Feb 13 – Americans are expected to spend ~$20B on Valentine's Day this year, including on virtual dating services. According to a new research from Earnest, those living on the West Coast are 55% more likely to pay for a dating service. Overall, ~10% of those surveyed said they paid for a dating app. Men are 16% more likely to pay for a dating app than women.

by Zoe Henry
See full article at INC

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Dating App Paktor Is Taking On Tinder In Southeast Asia

Posted on February 13, 2016

Paktor logo new jan 16INC – Feb 12 – With 6M users across Asian markets, Paktor is the biggest dating app in the region. It raised $7.1M in its Series B funding round this year. Paktor works like Tinder but the premium features allow users to also filter by occupation and education. Paktor says their research shows this is what matters to their users. Users are spending ~13 hours a month on the app, returning six times daily on average.

by Kirsten Han
The full article was originally published at INC, but is no longer available.

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Grindr Is 5 Years Old, Q&A With Joel Simkhai

Posted on April 8, 2014

Grindr joel simkhai apr 14INC – Apr 7 – Joel Simkhai founded Grindr, the location-aware hookup app, five years ago. The app has now 5M active monthly users. 75% of revenue comes from subscriptions to Gridr Xtra, which allows users to see more other nearby users.

Q: What motivated you to start Grindr?
A: In my 20s I tried some more traditional dating sites but location was not part of it.

Q: Did you know how to write software?
A: No, I went into this frantic race to find a developer.

Q: Did you take venture capital?
A: We are all self-funded.

Q: Was not taking investment a strategy from the beginning?
A: I like challenges, and I like the idea that if I'm going to risk something, I'm going to get the reward.

Q: How do you find new users?
A: We've done a little Facebook advertising. It's all really word of mouth and press.

Q: What is Tinder doing differently than Blendr did?
A: I think they figured out some things that I didn't figure out. Girls don't want to be harassed by guys. It's a more controlled harass.

Q: Are you worried about Tinder as competition?
A: It's not an app for gay guys.

Q: Are you still growing?
A: Yes, as people get more iPhones globally. Markets like Brazil are growing well for us now.

Q: Would you consider an exit strategy?
A: I'd take $19 billion. But no, I don't think I'd go public.

by Christine Lagorio-Chafkin
The full article was originally published at Palm Beach Post, but is no longer available.

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How Tinder Is Winning The Mobile Dating Wars

Posted on May 24, 2013

Tinder sean radINC MAGAZINE – May 25 – Tinder is one of the year's fastest growing apps. CEO Sean Rad has already been a successful entrepreneur once. In 2009, he founded ad.ly, which helps brands land celebrity endorsements on social media. Rad claims that the app has led to 50M matches and 10 marriages since it launched this fall.

Q: What inspired you to start Tinder in the first place?
A: In the real world, you're either a hunter or you're being hunted. If you're a hunter, there's constant rejection. And if you're hunted, you're constantly being bombarded. On Tinder, you anonymously say if you're interested in somebody, and if that person happens to be interested in you, you can have a conversation. If they're not interested, they never know you liked them anyway, so you don't feel embarrassed.

Q: When did things really take off?
A: Around January. We had been picking up on college campuses.

Q: What was the biggest issue?
A: We never anticipated it was going to take off this fast. Our challenge was not only maintaining the current system, but building the new one at the same time.

Q: Where'd the idea for Matchmaker, the new feature, come from?
A: Our vision is to be the platform that you think about when it comes to meeting somebody new under any context, not just dating. With Matchmaker, you can create a match between any two of your Facebook friends.

Q: How are you going to make money?
A: Right now, we're prioritizing our product ambitions first. We want to charge for giving you more value, not for interacting with us in a basic way.

Q: You've had a lot of success at a young age. Any advice to other founders who are just starting out?
A: You should only start a company because you can't sleep at night until you solve a certain problem, and I think those problems need to find you. If you're starting a company for the sake of starting a company, you're going to fail.

by Issie Lapowsky
See full article at INC Magazine

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