Chinese owner Grindr has sold company

Chinese company Beijing Kunlun Tech has sold its subsidiary Grindr, a gay dating app. This after the American Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States had requested it. The new owner does have ties with China.

Kunlun owns 98.59 percent of Grindr and sells it for $608.5 million, or just over $539 million. Grindr goes to San Vincente Acquisition, an American investor group. One of the members of that group is James Lu, a Chinese-born American citizen and former board member at Chinese search engine Baidu.

It is not known what exactly the committee objected to the property. Reuters writes, however, that the US is more concerned about the personal information of its citizens in the hands of foreign parties, especially when it comes to intelligence and defense personnel. Reuters reported last year that Kunlun engineers had access to US Grindr users’ personal information, including their HIV status and their private messages.

Kunlun took over Grindr in parts between 2016 and 2018. That started with the purchase of sixty percent of the shares and grew from that moment to the 98.59 percent that it is now selling. The Chinese company has further agreed that its Grindr headquarters will remain in America, that two of the three board members will be Americans, and that the board of directors must be approved by the Cfius.