Hayley Birkin
Reporter, Finance, Regulation and People, Dating Industry Insights. Edited by Bill Alena.
Hayley Birkin reports on the business of online dating for Dating Industry Insights: earnings, funding rounds, deals and valuations, the laws and regulators that shape the sector, and the people who lead it.
619 stories. Latest: .
Stories by Hayley Birkin, page 13 of 31
- TikTok Grew 200% While Instagram Flatlined. Dating Brands Still Have Not Made the Move.
TikTok follower growth for brands exceeded 200% year-on-year in 2025, while Instagram managed mid-single-digit median growth, according to Emplifi.
- Thursday Claims a $50M Valuation. Three Years After It Promised to Prove the Model or Quit.
Thursday says it has hit a $50M valuation and opened a Series A, targeting $500M within five years, per a LinkedIn post by co-founder George Rawlings.
- Saudi Arabia Has 3.5 Million Dating App Downloads and Almost No One Talks About It.
Saudi Arabia's dating app market made nearly $16M from 3.5 million downloads in the past year, with users paying for privacy and anonymity features.
- UK Dating App Usage Is Down 16%. The Matchmakers Are Having Their Best Year Ever.
UK dating app usage has fallen 16% since 2024, with Tinder losing over 500,000 British users, as human matchmaking grows 8% annually.
- Japan Made Dating App Fraud Illegal. The Rest of the World Is Watching.
A Tokyo District Court awarded ¥1.5M ($9,800) against a married man who hid his marital status on a dating app, with another case seeking ¥5.5M.
- Swept Built an In-App Date Planner and Required Government ID. One of Those Is a Good Idea.
Swept has added an in-app Date Planner and VPN detection, and will make government ID verification mandatory for all visible profiles by March 2026.
- UK Dating App Trust Collapsed 20 Points in a Year. AI Fakes Are Only Part of the Story.
Sumsub survey: 84% of UK dating app users say AI content makes matches harder to trust, up from 64%, with 67% now verifying matches themselves.
- Australia Banned Teens From Social Media. Snap Lost 3 Million Daily Users. Dating Apps Are Next.
Snapchat has restricted or shut 415,000 Australian teen accounts since the under-16 ban, and Snap reported a global loss of 3 million daily users.
- Meta Kills Messenger.com. Its Most Private Users Have Nowhere Left to Hide.
Meta will shut down messenger.com in April 2026, so desktop users who deactivated Facebook must reactivate it. Mobile access remains.
- Snapchat Has More Paying Subscribers Than Tinder. Read That Again.
Snapchat+ has reached 25 million paying subscribers, Snap Inc. says, more than Tinder's estimated 10-12 million, with a $1 billion run rate.
- Ember's Anti-Swipe Model Targets Match and Bumble's Revenue Assumptions
Ember Vision Ventures has launched a dating app capping users at a handful of AI-picked daily matches, positioning against the swiping model.
- Bluesky Outsourced Its Encryption. Dating Apps Should Read the Small Print.
Bluesky used profile badges in February 2026 to route users to Germ DM for encrypted chat, a model the story says carries risks for dating apps.
- Snapchat's Creator Subscription Numbers Are a Benchmark Dating Apps Should Study
Snapchat begins alpha testing Creator Subscriptions in the U.S. from 23rd February, at $4.99 to $19.99 monthly, with creators keeping approximately 60%.
- Pinterest's Search Rebrand Is a Monetisation Pivot. The Desperation Is Visible.
Pinterest missed Q4 2025 revenue consensus with $1.32B against $1.33B, and shares fell 20% despite 619 million monthly active users.
- LinkedIn's Crackdown Reveals How Thin the Line Is Between Networking and Dating
LinkedIn will remove automated comments and penalise engagement pod users, a change that affects dating brands and B2B vendors using the platform.
- MyTruDate Made Verification Mandatory. The Legal Exposure Is Real.
MyTruDate, a Florida dating app, now requires ID verification and criminal background checks for all users, a US first.
- Pinterest's Discovery Revenue Model Is What Dating Apps Should Have Built
Pinterest reached 619 million monthly users and $1.3 billion in Q4 2025 revenue, and the story says dating apps should copy its "quiet AI" approach.
- DUA AG Bought IRLY. The Acquisition Logic Raises More Questions Than It Answers.
DUA AG has acquired Vancouver dating app IRLY in an undisclosed all-cash deal, its second purchase after Spotted in 2022. IRLY gave no user or revenue data.
- Portugal's ID Mandate: A Blueprint for Dating Apps' Age Verification
Portugal voted 148-69 for parental consent for 13- to 16-year-olds on social media, with fines up to 2% of global revenue.
- PositiveSingles' Celebrity Tier Is a Privacy Play with a Serious Pricing Question
PositiveSingles has launched a lifetime membership tier aimed at celebrities and public figures, but gives no pricing or evidence of celebrity use.
Companies Hayley covers most
- Match Group (54)
- Grindr (25)
- Bumble (19)
- Meta (7)
- Matrimony.com (6)
- Ithaca Holdings (5)
- Aisle (5)
- ODDA (3)
- ParshipMeet Group (3)
- Hello Group (3)
The DII team
- Kim Harris, Reporter, Technology, Data and News
- Bill Alena, Editor and founder