Grindr’s revenue is on track to nearly triple by the end of this year, rising from $195 million in 2022 to a projected $540 million or more, with adjusted EBITDA margins above 40%. The growth has come almost entirely from getting existing users to pay more, rather than adding new ones: paying users stood at 1.4 million in the second quarter, or about 9% of the base, while average revenue per user has climbed sharply since CEO George Arison took over in 2022. Arison, who previously led the SPAC-listed used-car marketplace Shift Technologies, is now pushing Grindr beyond dating into healthcare and travel, describing the vision as a gayborhood in your pocket.
The company is also preparing to launch EDGE, a premium subscription tier that has drawn criticism online over a test price that translated to roughly $350 to $375 per month in U.S. dollars. Arison said EDGE is not yet released and that the quoted price was one of several test points used to gauge demand; he expects the tier to launch late this year or early next. He framed EDGE as a flagship product similar to a Tesla Model X or S, with its underlying AI capabilities eventually rolling down to cheaper plans.
Arison attributes much of the operational efficiency to a smaller, leaner workforce. He said that after requiring employees to return to the office two days a week in the summer of 2023, the company’s headcount dropped to about 70 people, and only around 25 employees from before his arrival remain today. Grindr now runs with roughly 175 U.S. staff plus a team in Colombia, and about 94 or 95 people in technical roles. Arison said around 80% of Grindr’s code is AI-written and that engineering productivity is up 2.5 times over the past year.
On the matching side, Arison said AI is being used to suggest partners outside a user’s home city, because even in places like San Francisco the gay population is only about 50,000 to 60,000 people. He acknowledged the company does not track whether long-distance matches lead to relationships, but noted that about half of gay men under 35 say they want a long-term monogamous relationship and a quarter say they want children. He argued that a new approach is worth trying because existing methods have not solved the difficulty of finding partners.
Grindr’s healthcare push includes a cash-pay line called Woodwork for ED medications, GLP-1s, and peptides, plus an in-app AI bot that handles those transactions directly. The company has also committed to giving 10 million people direct access to information on where to get PrEP, both in the U.S. and internationally. Arison said actual clinical care through telehealth, such as connecting users with gay doctors, is a long-term goal that could take up to a decade to become a bigger revenue stream than the core subscription business.
Arison continues to argue that institutional investors discount Grindr’s stock simply because it is a gay dating app, citing one investor who included a literal 25% “Grindr discount” in a financial model. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Raymond James have all raised price targets on the stock this year, with Morgan Stanley upgrading it to overweight in July on the strength of EDGE and the telehealth push. Still, the stock trades at roughly 11 times projected 2027 EBITDA, a discount of about 35% to peers.
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