Finances

Tinder’s premium service has been controversial since its debut in 2015. The company started off on the wrong foot by setting higher prices for users who were older than 30, and a sliding scale to younger users. Now, a California appeals court has found the company’s pricing model to be discriminatory to older users.

Judges with the California 2nd District Court of Appeals reversed the decision made by a previous judge, and has ordered Tinder to stop charging older customers more for its premium service, according to reports.

Tinder was charging users 30 and older $19.99 to use the premium service as opposed to those in their twenties, who were only charged $14.99 or $9.99. For the extra funds, users got to “superlike” their favorite matches, swipe as much as they wanted, change their decision on a match even after they swiped left, and avoid those pesky ads that pop up in the free version.

Image: ABC

Sick and tired of the relentless positivity of people trying to put their best foot forward on dating apps? Brendan Alper has the solution - now with Mark Cuban’s blessing, Shark Tank stardom, and a six-digit investment.

Alper is the brains behind Hater, an unusual take on digital dating that matches users based on things they can’t stand. Instead of mutual likes, Hater searches for mutual dislikes, prompting singles to bond over their most despised people, places, things, and concepts.

Following a successful public debut around Valentine’s Day in 2017, Alper appeared this month on ABC’s hit show Shark Tank to take Hater to the next level.

Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of female-friendly dating app Bumble, was just named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list, and is featured on its December 2017 cover. This is no small feat – her dating app has amassed a large following with 70% year-on-year growth, according to the article, and has 22 million registered users. In comparison Tinder has 46 million registered users and last year saw growth at 10%.

The company is also being eyed by Match Group, owner of dating app rival Tinder, and is said to be in talks for over a billion dollars as an asking price. Herd turned down the company’s original offer of $450 million, according to recent reports.

Market analysts have a fascination with Tinder and Bumble, the two fastest-growing dating apps in the online dating industry. Rumors have been persistent that Match Group and Tinder was interested in acquiring the female-friendly dating app for around $450 million as reported back in August of this year, but the company turned down the offer.

Now it seems that Match Group, the parent company of Tinder, is reportedly still in talks to acquire Bumble, but now for a much heftier price tag of one billion US dollars, according to a recent article in Forbes.

Currently, Match Group has only $500 million in cash and a market cap of under $8 billion, according to website TechCrunch. So potential options would be to fund Bumble with some debt, or to do a cash/ stock combination deal, or even to acquire a portion of the company rather than all of it.

Match Group LLC stock got a boost in early October, thanks to the success of Tinder Gold. The new premium app was among the top apps in the Apple Store, not just among dating apps, but alongside Netflix and Pandora. Match shares were up 3.6% Wednesday October 11, and the stock has jumped more than 50% since the start of the year.

But one question on investors’ minds is: what should we expect from Match Group’s other dating apps?

Match Group owns four of the five most popular dating sites, including Match, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish and Tinder, along with several niche dating sites. The problem for investors despite the good news is that these older sites have gotten less attention in Match Group’s overall valuation, because they aren’t generating the users or attention that Tinder does on an ongoing basis, despite their longevity in the online dating market.

Match is one of the oldest names in the online dating industry, but its strongest asset is a much younger name in the biz: Tinder.

As the stigma around online dating fades, the industry is experiencing rapid growth, particularly in the Millennial segment. Pew Research estimates that use of online dating sites among young adults (ages 18-24) nearly tripled from 2013 to 2016, rising from 10 percent to 27 percent, and opening a major opportunity for Match Group to expand its market share.

Match owns Tinder, the leading dating app for Millennial singles. By placing the majority of its focus on growing Tinder, Match Group hopes to secure its position as the digital match-maker of future generations.