China: Billionaire buys US gay dating app Grindr

One of China’s technology billionaires bought a 60 percent stake in Grindr, the world’s largest dating and social networking app for gay men, Grindr’s founder Joel Simkhai announced Tuesday. The deal valued the six-year-old startup at $155 million.

Simkhai said in a blog post that Grindr had sold a majority stake in its holding company — New Grindr LLC — to Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. Ltd., a Chinese internet gaming company. Beijing Kunlun’s chairman, Zhou Yahui, became a billionaire after his company listed shares in Shenzhen last year.

“We have taken this investment in our company to accelerate our growth,” Simkhai wrote in the statement, adding that “it will generally be business as usual” at Grindr, but with “additional resources to deliver a great product.”

Grindr has previously not raised capital from outside investors. Founded in 2009, the US-based app allows users to see photos of other people based on their location and share messages and pictures with each other. The app sees 2 million regular visitors every day from 196 countries who spend an average of 54 minutes on it per day, according to the company.

Full content: Bloomberg

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