Grindr Has Announced It Will Go Public 

Dating app Grindr announced it will become a public company through a merger with Tiga Acquisition, and that the combined companies have been valued at $2.1 billion.

According to Bloomberg News, Tiga is a special acquisition company and isn’t offering any private investment in public equity (PIPE) deals but will provide Grindr with an estimated $384 million in cash proceeds, which includes $284 million of Tiga’s cash in trust plus up to $100 million in a forward purchase agreement. The company will use the funds to pay down debt and invest in future growth.

Grindr had several offers from other SPACs before merging with Tiga.

Grindr’s Chief Financial Officer Gary Hsueh said to Bloomberg: “From our perspective, we’re ready to be a public company. The route through a SPAC rather than a traditional initial public offering “made more sense because it had certainty and that’s even more important today than it was a year ago when the market was different.”

Grindr has changed hands a few times, most notably when it was sold to Chinese company Beijing Kunlun Tech, which took over operations at the West Hollywood headquarters of the app and caused concern among employees when Kunlun executives held separate, secret conversations in Chinese over WhatsApp. 

U.S. government regulators eventually got involved with Kunlun’s ownership due to national security concerns, specifically the Chinese government’s potential access to the sensitive personal data of Grindr’s users, including HIV status and location, which could compromise military and government officials who use the app. Regulators forced Kunlun to sell Grindr, which it eventually did for $600 million to San Vicente Acquisition Partners LLC in 2020.

Most recently, Grindr was removed from the app store in China after a new law was passed requiring that “data stored in applications that is transferred to other locations be approved by government officials,” according to The Hill. It was also removed from the country’s other major app market service companies, Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Huawei Technologies Co.

Grindr has 11 million monthly active users, with roughly 80 percent of its user base under 35 years old, according to Bloomberg, making it a very attractive contender in the dating app market. It currently has 723,000 paying users. Revenue grew 30 percent from the previous year in 2021, totaling $147 million. As a comparison Match Group's dating apps (like Tinder, POF, Hinge, etc.) in total have around 100 million monthly active users and Bumble has 40 million.

Grindr CEO Jeff Bonforte said in a statement: “Grindr is well positioned to be a public company and will continue to expand the ways it serves the LGBTQ+ community, from products, services to the philanthropic and advocacy work done through Grindr 4 Equality,”