Deals, earnings, valuations and investor news from the dating business.
Whitney Wolfe Herd has returned as Bumble CEO after 14 months, replacing Lidiane Jones, with the share price down 91% from its 2021 peak.
Quickmeets, a Penn graduate's dating app, uses AI to match users with lookalikes of uploaded celebrity photos at seven US universities.
Lunch Actually has acquired dating app Paktor, forming a hybrid matchmaking and app business across six Asian markets.
Match Group named Spencer Rascoff CEO, its fourth in six years, as Bumble brought back founder Whitney Wolfe Herd after 24 months under Lidiane Jones.
Tinder is running ExCycle, a two-day New York pop-up that upcycles clothes from past relationships, as it tests post-breakup retention.
Match Group's annual report puts social ads at 67% of performance marketing spend, up from 54% in 2021, exposing dating apps to platform shifts.
Social Discovery Group commits $20 million to a venture fund for AI dating tools and VR social platforms, taking minority stakes in startups.
Bumble is closing dating apps Fruitz and Official on 31st May, saying it will focus on core businesses, as Q4 2024 revenue rose 9% year-on-year.
Bindr's spin-out ColdStart, an AI marketing tool, has secured more than $1 million in contracts and now earns more than the dating app's 250,000-user platform.
Bumble shares fell 12% after-hours on weak Q1 guidance of $268M-$273M, despite Q4 revenue of $275.5M beating analyst expectations by 2%.
Match Group and Bumble's push into events may move dating from software to hospitality economics, as Gen Z shifts to social apps.
Hello Group's Q4 2024 net income fell 59% to $32.2M as revenue fell 12% to $471.2M, while Middle East revenue hit $138M, above Tantan's China revenue.
Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff told Bloomberg its apps had become 'a numbers game', while Tinder is not expected to return to growth until 2027.
Slide1828 says 48% of its surveyed users felt uncomfortable meeting a dating app match alone, but double-date apps remain small and unproven.
Match Group is adding generative AI for profiles and messages as Tinder subscribers fell 9% to 9.6 million in Q3 2024, says an analysis.
Tinder will add AI-curated matching alongside swiping, Match Group says, after five consecutive quarters of user decline at the app.
Match Group named Spencer Rascoff CEO in place of Bernard Kim, and shares fell 3.2% in after-hours trading on the announcement.
Match Group shares fell 9% after it named Spencer Rascoff CEO, with Q4 revenue of $900M, up 1% year-on-year, and Tinder revenue flat.
Bumble Inc is closing its Fruitz and Official apps and cutting 350 roles, roughly 30% of its workforce, to focus on its core platforms.
Bumble shares fell 18% after Q1 revenue guidance of $242M to $248M missed the $256.9M consensus, as Whitney Wolfe Herd returns as CEO.
Mattr, a London dating app for neurodivergent users, has raised £177,000 via crowdfunding, 78% of its £225,000 target, from 247 investors.
Match Group's Tinder lost more than 500,000 users between 2023 and 2024, and usage across the top ten dating platforms fell 16% year on year.
Match Group is rolling out AI message screening on Tinder and Hinge, with 20% of warned users revising messages, according to safety chief Yoel Roth.
Match Group has translated Tinder's Dating Safety Guide into Bengali, Hindi, Kannada and Marathi for India, ahead of Safer Internet Day on 11 February.
Tinder says TikTok influencers are reversing negative sentiment among young users, but Match has not disclosed the study's methodology.
Tinder's monthly active users fell 8% year-on-year in January 2025, and Match Group is speeding up AI matching under new CEO Spencer Rascoff.
Social League launches in Dubai this month with invitation-only events for professionals aged 30-60, offering an offline alternative to dating apps.
A UC Davis study of 4,500 blind dates found both men and women were more attracted to younger partners in person, challenging stated-preference matching.
Tinder used six influencers from September to December 2024 as Match Group payers fell for eight consecutive quarters. Q4 results are due 5 February.
UK dating startups are chasing Tinder fatigue, but break-even is put at £80-120M in acquisition costs against seed rounds of £500K-2M.
Feeld, the London-based dating app, is using a print magazine and members-only events to keep users engaged, after reporting 107% user growth.
Tinder, Hinge and Bumble reported Dating Sunday 2025 gains of 20%, 40% and 32%, but none disclosed year-over-year baseline data.
Tinder says swipes rise 20% on Dating Sunday, 5 January, but Match Group has disclosed no product plans after six quarters of Tinder revenue decline.
Hinge has launched "Crossed Paths", a global campaign with seven real couples, as Match Group's paying subscribers fell to 10.3 million in Q3 2024.
Grindr closed at $16.75 this week after Goldman Sachs upgraded it to 'buy' with a $20 target, as investors favour niche dating apps over generalists.
Asian-focused dating app KRUSH has raised seed funding from Mashup Ventures with fewer than 500 combined downloads in January 2025.
Meta's Facebook Dating has 21 million users, more than Hinge, and daily conversations among 18-29 year-olds rose 24 per cent.
Bumble is losing its CFO and CMO and has hired Neil Shah, ex-Slack and Twitter, as chief business officer, with Q3 2024 paying users up just 3%.
Dateability, a bootstrapped dating app for disabled singles, has reached 25,000 users with zero marketing spend and expanded to the UK.
Match Group shares dropped 13% after a Q4 revenue forecast below expectations, as Tinder's paying users fall and Hinge's growth cannot yet fill the gap.
Match Group shares fell 13% after a Q4 revenue forecast of $865M-$875M missed expectations, as Tinder's paying subscribers decline and Hinge grows.
Three Day Rule has been acquired by an unnamed private investment group, with Adam Cohen-Aslatei, who sold S'More to Tawkify in 2023, as CEO.
Tinder will donate AUD$1 per profile verification in Australia to Wesnet, capped at AUD$20,000, from 12 November to 6 December.
Facebook Dating grew 20% across North America in the past year, and Meta claims 24% in the U.S. and Canada, without disclosing user numbers.
Date Right, the conservative dating app, is moving to Android with 300,000 iOS downloads and 3.4 million TikTok followers, raising scale questions.
Match Group announced $150M in AI investment in November 2024 as matchmakers and coaches urge dating apps to adopt human services instead.
Bumble's Q3 2024 revenue was $273.6M, down 0.7% year-over-year, its first fall since going public, despite 4.3 million subscribers.
Bindr, an LGBTQ dating app, has raised $135,000 from two startup competitions, $75,000 from UpPrize and $60,000 from StartupFest.
RAW's 'Ghosting Killer' blocks new chats until users reply to existing ones, and the app says its ghosting rate is between 1% and 5%.
Tinder paying users fell 8% year-on-year, Match Group reported, while dating app HER grew its user base 15% in 2024 to 13 million members.
Financial covers the money in online dating: quarterly results from Match Group (MTCH), Bumble (BMBL) and Grindr (GRND), private-company accounts filed at Companies House, mergers and acquisitions, take-privates, funding rounds and investor moves. DII reports figures from the filings themselves, gives each number its period and source, and compares companies on the same basis. Every deal also goes into DII's deals tracker.