Match Just Made A $100 Million Bet That Sniffies Can Challenge Grindr

Match Group Inc., whose making love app portfolio includes brands for illustration Hinge, Tinder and Match.com, is investing $100 cardinal successful Sniffies, a level for queer men, paving nan measurement for a imaginable acquisition.

Seattle-based Sniffies, which has astir 3 cardinal monthly progressive users worldwide, provides cheery men a real-time representation that often features friendly user-submitted images, an acquisition designed to thief users find imaginable hookups. Sniffies is presently a web-only platform, having been removed from Apple Inc.’s App Store past twelvemonth owed to what Sniffies described arsenic contented restrictions.

The caller finance represents a important number ownership liking and includes nan action to get nan remaining equity successful nan future, Match said successful a connection connected Monday. The institution declined to remark connected whether it plans to effort again to get nan level onto nan App Store aliases a competing marketplace. The news caused shares of Grindr Inc., nan starring making love app institution for cheery men, to autumn 2.5% successful extended trading. Match’s banal was small changed.

Match has expanded its portfolio of much than 20 apps done respective acquisitions, sometimes starting disconnected pinch an investment, arsenic it’s doing pinch Sniffies. In 2017, nan making love conglomerate invested successful Hinge earlier buying it a twelvemonth later. Last twelvemonth it purchased nan HER app for queer dating. In precocious 2023 Match acquired Salams, a making love app for Muslims, and it maintains further apps targeted astatine Christian, Black, Latino and Asian daters, respectively.

As portion of nan investment, Match told Bloomberg it is winding down its existing Archer app, which it launched successful 2023 to service queer men, and that it will attraction alternatively connected supporting Sniffies. The making love startup will proceed to run independently nether laminitis and Chief Executive Officer Blake Gallagher.

In a LinkedIn station reviewed by Bloomberg, Gallagher said nan move will let nan institution to “move faster connected nan things our users person been asking for,” including stronger spot and safety, expansive web maturation and continued merchandise improvements.

Match told Bloomberg that it sees queer men arsenic a increasing customer conception for nan online making love industry. Sniffies is nan number 2 subordinate successful that abstraction down Grindr, according to Match.

Sniffies is already generating gross and is profitable, which reinforces nan merchandise and nan demand, according to a Match spokesperson. The startup’s personification guidelines reflects a demographic that often uses aggregate making love platforms and stays connected apps for longer periods of time, according to Match’s soul research.

Kelly writes for Bloomberg.