Tinder owner’s pockets charred following $441m settlement with founders
Match Group, the media titan behind Tinder, has agreed to fork out $441m to settle a lawsuit from the dating app’s founders.
Co-founders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen claimed that they had been swindled out of a substantial amount of cash by Match, after they were bought out in 2017.
The court battle began in 2018 when the claimants accused Match, which also owns PlentyOfFish and OkCupid, and its former parent company IAC.
The founders collectively held a stake worth around a fifth of the popular dating app, which was worth around $600m – a figure which suggests that the combined value of Tinder was some $3bn.
However, the founders argued that the app was actually worth $13bn at the time.
Internal emails sent by Greg Blatt, former Tinder chief executive and IAC executive, showed that he said the dating app was worth nearly $12bn in 2016, a year before he judged the company to be worth just $3bn.
The legal filing put forward by the plaintiffs also alleges that Gregg Blatt “groped and sexually harassed” an employee during a 2016 party.
Tinder fired the employees in response to their lawsuit, and the employee – vice president and co-founder Rosette Pambakian – separately sued Tinder over the assault claims.
City PM has contacted Match for comment.