Finances

After a rough patch at the end of November where the newly launched stock for dating app Grindr hit an all-time low, it is now looking more promising for potential investors.

Seeking Alpha reported that shares on November 29th opened at $8, reaching a high of $9 before falling to $6.52 in the late afternoon. The stock had only debuted on November 18, following its merger with SPAC Tiga Acquisition Corp which valued the combined company at $2.1 billion. Shares of the combined company rose over 500 percent before closing its first day at $36.50, but then plunged the next day and did not recover through the end of November and into December.

Grindr however released its third quarter earnings report in early December, noting that revenue for the quarter was up 32 percent year-over-year to $50.4 million, and year-to-date revenue was up to $140.5 million. 

Dating app Grindr launched its initial public offering in mid-November and saw its stock quickly soar thanks to enthusiastic investors, and despite the recent downturn of tech and dating app markets. The stock rose more than 400 percent after it launched.

According to MarketWatch, the stock debuted at $16.90 on Friday November 18th, and hit a high of $71.51 before noon. It then closed out the day at $36.50. The LGBTQ+ dating app merged with Tiga Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company, and debuted that day on the NYSE under the symbols GRND and GRND.WS. Unfortunately, a week and a half later and now the stock has trading as low as $7.63.

"Today marks an important milestone not only for the team at Grindr, but for the LGBTQ community we serve," said Grindr's chief executive officer, George Arison, in a statement reported by NPR. "We enter the public markets with momentum, carried by our market leadership, strong financial performance and significant growth runway as we step up investment in our core product and services."

In response to increasing scrutiny of its Play Store practices, Google has announced it is opening up its platform to third party payment systems in 35 additional countries.

Currently, Google is the only option for an in-app payment provider on its platform in most countries aside from South Korea, which means it can charge commission (as high as 30 percent) to app developers for every single in-app purchase made by their users. Developers began to fight back, and along with help from European regulators who began to crack down on Apple and Google for their App Store and Play Store practices, they are finding success.

This new initiative has opened up platforms in the US, Brazil and South Africa, in addition to those markets which had already required third party payment system options to be available for developers, such as the EU, Japan, Australia and India.

The value for dating app Bumble’s stock has dropped 14 percent after the company lowered revenue forecasts for the fourth quarter, and Gen Z users have increasingly stopped renewing their subscriptions.

Bumble expects Q4 revenue to be between $232 million and $237 million according to Reuters. This is lower than Wall Street projections of $254.5 million, according to Refinitiv data. Still, the company pointed out that paying users for the third quarter increased to 3.3 million from 2.9 million last year, a sign of growth despite the downturn.

According to Motley Fool, on a call with investors, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said that the economic slowdown affected spending for “certain segments of its user base,” notably younger daters, who were not renewing subscriptions at the normal rate. Motley Fool also noted that shares had already fallen 38 percent this year as investors fled dating and tech stocks in general, following a surge of interest and rising subscriptions in dating apps during pandemic lockdowns.

Dating app conglomerate Match Group reported third quarter earnings that beat analyst expectations, with more of its users paying for subscriptions on dating app Tinder. The company’s stock rose 16 percent in response.

Despite the effects of inflation and a slow first half of the year, along with poor execution of some new features and executive team changes made by new CEO Bernard Kim, Match Group turned things around and impressed investors and analysts with better-than-expected revenue gains. Match Group revenue reached $810 million for the quarter ending September 30th, beating analysts’ estimate of $793 million according to Refinitiv data.

Tinder’s revenue grew 6 percent and its paying users jumped 7 percent according to Reuters. Tinder users account for the vast majority of Match Group’s estimated 100 million active users.

Match Group has joined Epic Games in expanding their lawsuit against Google and its Play Store, claiming the company paid developers to prevent Play Store competition.

According to a report by Engadget, the companies filed a motion with a federal court in the Northern District of California in October, accusing Google of paying off developers that had the financing and ability to create new Android app stores to compete with Google.

As Tech Crunch pointed out, this would be “a direct violation of U.S. antitrust law known as the Sherman Act,” the amended lawsuit states.

In the original lawsuit, Epic Games and Match Group detailed a program called “Project Hug” that paid game developers hundreds of millions of dollars to keep their games on the Google Play store, notably following the release of Epic Games’ Fortnight in 2018 (where it was made available outside of Google Play, bypassing their fees).