Sniffies gets $100M Investment From Match

Will Sniffies soon be owned by the same company that helps straight folks hook up? Er, uh, I mean, find true love? The Los Angeles Times recently reported that Match Group Inc, owners of such popular and mostly straight-geared dating apps Hinge, Tinder, and Match.com, has made an investment in Sniffies, the ever-growing gay hook-up site, to the tune of a whopping $100 million dollars. (Cue Dr. Evil pinky in teeth face.) Many believe this is in advance of a possible acquisition.

According to the article, Sniffies, which has a worldwide active monthly user base of around 3 million, allows for a slightly more explicit online experience, with the use of real-time location settings and uncensored graphics. This may be the reason it was pulled last year from Apple's app store due to "content restrictions." Sniffies, right now, is a web-only platform.

"The new investment represents a significant minority ownership stake and includes the option to acquire the remaining equity in the future, Match said in a statement on Monday. The company declined to comment on whether it plans to try again to get the platform onto the App Store or a competing marketplace. The news caused shares of Grindr Inc., the leading dating app company for gay men, to fall 2.5% in extended trading. Match’s stock was little changed." (Samantha Kelly, The Los Angeles Times.)

Ms. Kelly reports that the process of purchasing an app after a significant investment, such as the one made in Sniffies, is common practice for Match. In 2017, it made a large investment in Hinge before the acquisition. In recent years, it has used this manner to also acquire HERS (queer dating), Salams (dating for Muslims), and others geared towards Christian, Hispanic, Black, and Asian app users.

Because of the investment, Match will phase out Archer, a dating app launched in 2023 geared towards queer men, and concentrate on Sniffies. The site will still be run independently by Chief Executive Officer Blake Gallagher, who told Bloomberg that this will allow Sniffies to "'move faster on the things our users have been asking for,' including stronger trust and safety, expansive network growth, and continued product improvements."

Sniffies, second only to Grindr for gay men's usage, is profitable and generates revenue, which makes it in demand. Match says that gay men are a growing customer base for online dating; they are "a demographic that often uses multiple dating platforms and stays on apps for longer periods of time, according to Match’s internal research."

Are you a Sniffies user? How much time do you average before actually hooking up? We want to know!

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