Grindr’s Owners May Take It Private After A Financial Squeeze

In Brief

Grindr’s mostly owners are scrambling to return nan LGBTQ+ making love app backstage aft a banal diminution triggered a individual financial crisis, according to a report from Semafor.

The owners successful mobility are Raymond Zage, a erstwhile hedge money head and U.S. expat now based successful Singapore, and James Lu, a Chinese-American entrepreneur and erstwhile Amazon and Baidu exec. Together they led nan 2020 acquisition of Grindr from Chinese ownership for complete $600 million, past took nan app nationalist successful 2022 done a blank-check merger.

Reportedly, Zage and Lu, who together power much than 60% of Grindr, pledged astir each their shares arsenic collateral for individual loans from a portion of Singapore’s sovereign wealthiness money Temasek. After Grindr began a descent astatine nan extremity of September, those loans became undercollateralized (worth little than nan debt), truthful nan Temasek portion seized and sold immoderate of nan shares past week.

Grindr’s banal descent appears disconnected from business fundamentals – profits were up 25% successful nan 2nd quarter, Semafor notes, though it has seen immoderate executive turnover; location has been immoderate investor interest astir narrowing margins, too.

Either way, nan brace are now said to beryllium successful talks pinch Fortress Investment Group – itself now mostly owned by Mubadala Investment Company, which is itself owned by nan authorities of Abu Dhabi – to unafraid financing for a buyout astatine astir $15 per share, which would worth Grindr astatine astir $3 billion. Shares jumped pursuing nan report.

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