China

Momo Homepage Screenshot

Momo reported financial results for the third quarter of 2019. The company’s major moments this year included topping Fortune’s ranking of the 100 fastest-growing companies in 2019 and working to get Tantan reinstated after it was removed from Android app stores by order of governmental authorities in China. Overall, Q3 was a positive period for the Chinese social networking and dating company.

Momo highlighted the following achievements for Q3 2019:

Dating.com Group is expanding its suite of dating apps by acquiring Dil Mil, a San Francisco-based dating app that is popular among ex-pats from India and South Asian countries, according to Tech Crunch.

South Asian ex-pats are less interested in arranged marriages, and have turned to dating apps to help find love in the U.S. However, most popular American dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid aren’t culturally appealing to this group of daters, who are more conservative and traditional in their approach to dating.

Shares of Match Group fell 15 percent after the company announced it will miss revenue goals for the fourth quarter. Shares of IAC also fell by 11 percent, according to Reuters.

The company expects fourth quarter revenue to be between $545 and $555 million, short of the $559.3 million goal according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

This news comes on the heels of a complaint filed by the U.S. Federal Trading Commission that Match Group offered fake profiles to entice customers to purchase paid subscriptions to its services, among other “deceptive and unfair practices,” as said in the lawsuit. Match Group is also facing legal entanglements with former Tinder employees, including founder Sean Rad, who said the company cheated him out of rightful payment after undervaluing his stock options.

China’s gay dating app Blued is making its next move – an IPO in the U.S. market.

According to Bloomberg, the largest app for the LGBTQ community in China is planning to raise about $200 million through the IPO. The sale will likely take place next year, and the company could be valued as high as 1 billion US dollars.

Blued was founded by a former policeman named Geng Le in 2012, and now has more than 40 million users and garnered more than $130 million in venture capital as of March of this year, according to Bloomberg. The app offers live streaming and gaming in addition to online dating, and also connects men who want to become parents with surrogates overseas. These types of services are also part of Blued’s strategy to generate additional revenue outside of the traditional dating app.

Swipe right for romance and… revolution? As the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong continue into their third month, and the police response has become violent, demonstrators are growing increasingly creative in their tactics. Tech-savvy activists are now turning to their favorite mobile apps - including Telegram, WhatsApp, Pokemon Go and Tinder - to organize demonstrations and share tips for evading authorities.

Gavin Huang, an editor for the Chinese culture website Goldthread, took to Twitter to share a photo of a Tinder profile he encountered. “So it’s come to this,” he wrote on August 1, “I’m getting protest info on Tinder.” The attached screenshot shows a profile picture with a schedule of protest events and a bio inviting curious swipers to join a strike.

Gay dating app Grindr is headed towards an IPO again, now that the U.S. national security panel CFIUS has dropped its opposition.

Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech purchased Grindr fully in 2018, but the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. found this problematic and forced Beijing Kunlun to sell the app by June 2020. According to a report from CNBC, a source familiar with the situation said the efforts to sell Grindr by the deadline were continuing, even as plans for the IPO were moving forward.