Grindr Stock Shot Up At New York Stock Exchange Debut
Image: Grindr at the New York Stock Exchange and ringing the bell. Photo: @Grindr/Twitter.
The popular gay hookup app, Grindr made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and its shares skyrocketed from $16.90 to $71.51 before settling down to $36.50.
Representatives of Grindr rang the bell for trading to commence on 18th November at the NYSE and to celebrate, a giant Grindr banner and Pride flags were out the front.
After a successful recent merger, the company celebrated its debut on public markets with a drag show on Wall Street. The company will be operating under the name Grindr Inc. and its trading name is “GRND.”
Grindr has now joined with other hook-up and dating apps on the NYSE such as Bumble and Match Group.
you can ring my bell ???? $GRND pic.twitter.com/oK1BZqflWj
— Grindr (@Grindr) November 18, 2022
Back in May, the company had announced that a merger with Tiga Acquisition Corp was agreed upon and that the company would go public. Valuing at $2.1 billion, the deal provided Grindr with around $384 million.
According to Yahoo!News, the app reportedly had 11 million monthly users and revenue growth of 30 percent.
Unthinkable A Decade Ago
CEO of Grindr, George Arison has stated that publicly listing a company that is primarily marketed to LGBTQ folks wouldn’t have occurred in the past.
“It’s a pretty incredible thing that the company whose primary user base is gay and bisexual men, built by and for the LGBTQ population, with an employee base that is heavy in that cohort of the population as well, is now going public,” Arison said, as reported by QNews.
“It’s not something that would not have happened 20 years ago, probably wouldn’t have happened even 10 years ago.”
Mixed Reactions
The reaction to Grindr’s debut has been mixed sort on social media, with some celebrating it as a win “for a gay business.”
Others remained unfazed and even criticized the company for the move.
“You should fix the app that hasn’t worked for the last week,” one user wrote.
Some even used this to take potshots at Elon Musk and his failing Twitter, with some suggesting that Grindr could offer help to a “plummeting media app now owned by a billionaire.”
