Dating Services

The share value for dating app conglomerate Match Group was downgraded from buy to hold in mid-September by a Wall Street analyst who projects the company will fall short on revenue goals until the end of the year.

According to Seeking Alpha, Loop Capital Analyst Laura Champine said Tinder remains a “wildcard” on the heels of Renate Nyborg’s exit from the company, the app’s market share losses to Bumble, and “cannibalization” of Tinder by the company’s other star app Hinge. She also lowered her price target from $70 to $60 a share, adding that “we see potential for further misses” going into the next quarter. 

Champine added that CEO Bernard Kim will be able to “bring in exciting talent” from outside the company, which she takes as a promising sign. Still, she said of the company’s star app: "Tinder has not been executing in line with expectations…Match blamed Tinder for its lower outlook overall and said product launches had been poorly executed of late. The brand needs to do a better job attracting new customers," according to Seeking Alpha.

Grindr CEO George Arison

Dating app Grindr, which serves the LGBTQ+ community, named board member George Arison as its new CEO. He is scheduled to launch the company’s IPO this fall with a $2.1 billion valuation.

Arison is scheduled to take the reins on October 19th. He has long worked in the tech industry and been a board member of the company since May, according to NBC News. Prior to his appointment as CEO, he founded the car reseller app Shift Technologies, where he also served as CEO, and before that he headed a taxi-hailing app.

In addition to hiring a new CEO, Grindr also appointed a new CFO, the former CFO of Disney Streaming Service Vanna Krantz, who launched and grew the highly successful Disney+ product. Grindr’s outgoing CEO Jeff Bonforte and CFO Gary Hsueh will move into advisory roles going forward, according to NBC News.

Smitten, a new dating app designed for Gen Z daters, has raised $10 million in its latest round of Series A funding.

According to Venture Beat, investors of the app include Makers Fund, Possible Ventures, and Wonder Invest.

Smitten has gotten attention, thanks to a new study that found it had a post-match success rate of 60 percent, compared to Tinder’s 11 percent – a huge difference to online daters. It is currently the most popular dating app in Iceland and second most popular in Europe, so the new round of funding is in part to help the app expand into new territories and grow its user base.

Smitten has a new take on matching – in addition to sifting through profiles, it has added games to help young daters interact in more engaging ways. If you are interested in someone’s profile, you can start with a questionnaire game called Guessary, where you can guess how the other person answered a series of yes and no questions and get immediate feedback on whether they are correct. If you like how they answered, you can like and match with them and take it from there.

A new survey from dating app Hinge found that young Gen Z daters are no longer interested in hookup culture, thanks to the isolation they felt from the pandemic.

Forty-five percent of Gen Z daters surveyed felt that they had changed their dating habits for the better since the pandemic began - and are only interested in relationships that would be “additive” to their lives, according to a report from New York Post.

In addition, 39 percent of those surveyed said they were pickier about who they dated since the pandemic, and 91 percent of these respondents said this was because they didn’t want to waste time on the wrong person.

D. V. Williams - CPO of Match Group

Dating app conglomerate Match Group has appointed DV Williams as its Chief People Officer, according to the company’s press release.

Williams will be based in Los Angeles and will oversee operations that involve its employees, which according to the company include compensation, benefits, “people information systems,” diversity, equity and inclusion, and learning and development for Match Group, according to the company's press release.

Williams last worked in the same role for Cars.com, where he oversaw human resources as well as diversity and inclusion. He will report to Match Group CEO Bernard Kim.

Dating app Tinder and non-profit The Human Rights Campaign just announced a platform partnership to urge US Senators to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and require the US government to recognize same-sex marriages.

Tinder users will be directed to a landing page with an email template, according to The Hill, where they can send a message to their respective Senators and urge them to support the bill. Part of the campaign includes highlighting LGBTQ+ couples who met over the app.

According to tilte:The Hill, the bill itself would repeal and replace provisions "that define, for purposes of federal law, marriage as between a man and a woman and spouse as a person of the opposite sex with provisions that recognize any marriage that is valid under state law."