Hayley Birkin

Dating apps have until summer 2026 to meet Ofcom's cyberflashing rules or face fines based on global revenue, under the Online Safety Act.

Friending has raised £5M in seed funding for a friendship app that deletes chats after 48 hours and pushes in-person meetups, a model the story questions.

Tinder has made video selfie verification compulsory for all new UK users, with Match Group reporting a 40% drop in scam-related reports.

New Mexico jury awards $375 million in civil penalties against Meta over child safety claims, raising legal risk for dating apps' age checks.

Dining app 222 has raised $10.1M in Series A funding, taking its total to $13.7M, for AI-curated group dinners at $22 per month in four US cities.

Hinge CEO Jackie Jantos says the app's algorithm does not favour attractive users, but the claim cannot be independently verified.

'Pop the Balloon or Find Love' YouTube creators launched a dating app for Black singles in February, with a 'Match Lock' one-chat limit.

UK dating platforms must report child sexual abuse material to the National Crime Agency from 7 April, with fines up to 10% of turnover or £18M.

Grindr has disabled distance-based tracking in Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic athlete villages and replaced third-party ads with safety messaging.

Ross Williams, founder of collapsed white-label dating firm Venntro, has launched the Fortitude Foundation, a peer support network for failed founders.

Bumble's Q4 revenue of $273M beat expectations by 1.3% while paying users fell 20.5% to 3.1M after it cut performance marketing by over 80%.

DateMyAge says over 50 per cent of online daters have encountered 'some form of risk', as it stresses member safety amid UK and EU regulation.

Meta now charges advertisers 2-5% 'location fees' on campaigns in six countries, including the UK and France, raising user acquisition costs for dating apps.

13D Management sold its entire Match Group stake, 64,350 shares worth $4.69M, in Q4 2024, according to SEC filings.

Meetic will open its Speak Easy in-person singles events to non-subscribers from 2026, after a 70-person Paris event in October 2024.

At least ten countries have enacted or are reviewing under-16 social media bans, and dating apps may face age verification rules next.

Match Group scrapped its COO role 12 months after creating it, and Hesam Hosseini, who led Tinder and Hinge, is leaving, a filing shows.

Crush, a new Luxembourg dating platform, vets every member and matches people only at in-person events, with no online browsing.

Steven Bartlett invested £150,000 for 30% of hati, a UK dating app built on five-minute phone calls, which had £48 of revenue when it pitched.

Match Group's Tinder will pay $60.5M to settle a class action over charging subscribers over 30 more than younger users for the same features.