Match Group bought about half of Sniffies, the map-based cruising app for gay, bi and queer men, CEO Spencer Rascoff said Monday, Nov. 2. “We purchased about half of Sniffies,” Rascoff said as he wrapped up the company’s third-quarter earnings call, according to a transcript published by The Motley Fool.
When Match announced the deal in April, it gave no percentage. The April 27 release on the Match Group Sniffies deal said the $100 million investment “represents a significant minority ownership stake.” The quarterly report Match filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week lists “a $100.0 million minority investment in Sniffies.”
“About half” is an approximation, not a disclosed ownership percentage. Match’s filings still describe a minority stake, and the company has not announced a full acquisition.
Rascoff was recapping his time in charge. “I just want to close by taking stock of my first seven quarters as CEO here,” he said. His list opened with Tinder’s user trends and Hinge’s revenue. “We purchased HER,” he said, one line before the Sniffies remark.
HER is the dating app for queer women that Match bought in May 2025 without disclosing terms, Bloomberg reported. “Upward and BLK and HER all are going after white space in their respective user segments,” Rascoff told Wells Fargo analyst Alec Brondolo on the call. (HER now sits on the brand list in Match’s own boilerplate. Sniffies doesn’t.)
Match Group’s Sniffies Stake Comes With an Option to Buy
Match can buy the rest of Sniffies later. “We have the option to acquire the remaining equity in the future, similar to the approach we took with our initial investment in Hinge in 2017,” Match said in prepared remarks for its May earnings call.
A Form D that Sniffies Holdings Inc. filed with the SEC on May 8 reports $100 million in equity sold to one unnamed investor, with the first sale on April 23. “On April 23, 2026, we used $100 million of cash on hand to make a minority interest investment in Sniffies,” Match said in its first-quarter results.
Under the deal, which Gayety covered in April, Sniffies stays independent and founder-led. “From day one, our focus has been on creating a product that reflects what our users are looking for,” founder and CEO Blake Gallagher said in Match’s announcement, “and that won’t change.”
Gallagher also posted a statement on Sniffies’ Instagram at the time. “Sniffies will always be the unapologetic cruising platform you know and love,” he wrote, Fast Company reported.
Archer Closed in June and Pointed Its Guys to Sniffies
Match closed its own gay app as part of the bet. “As part of this investment, we plan to wind down our gay male app, Archer,” the May remarks said.
Archer launched in 2023, according to Fast Company. “Archer will officially shut down on June 17, 2026,” its help center told users, and the page steered them to Sniffies as “a real-time, map-based way to connect and meet guys nearby.”
“Sniffies reinforces our commitment with non-heterosexual men, which represent a large and growing portion of the category,” Match’s May remarks said. Britain’s online safety regulator has since been in talks with Sniffies about its UK age checks, Gayety reported Oct. 30.
Tinder’s Matching Update Is Reaching More LGBTQ+ Users
Tinder’s LGBTQ users came up when Deutsche Bank analyst Benjamin Black asked Rascoff about Tinder’s matching. “The recommendation system looks to be at least a big part of the foundation of Tinder’s turnaround,” Black said.
“Queue Unification and our Recs improvements have been really critical to our improving business results in 2026,” Rascoff replied. The system changes how Tinder recommends potential matches. Match’s third-quarter prepared remarks describe Queue Unification as “a unified recommendation architecture.”
“We just rolled out Queue Unification to other user types,” Rascoff said. “I think we just rolled it out to women seeking men and women seeking anyone or other different LGBTQ audiences, but we still have more to go.”
He didn’t say on the call whether men seeking men are in that group. The remarks say more queer users are next in line: “We plan to continue its rollout into 2027, including to additional LGBTQ+ users.”
“Real-time Recs, we have said we intend to launch by the end of the year,” Rascoff said. “We are very confident in the potential that will bring, but it is also unproven.”
Tinder’s daily active users grew from a year earlier in September, Match said in its results release. “Turning DAU positive in September year-over-year for the first time in three and a half years felt great,” Rascoff said.
Grindr Reports Third-Quarter Results Thursday, Nov. 5
Grindr reports after the market closes Thursday, with a call at 2 p.m. Pacific, the company announced Oct. 22. “The live event will also be broadcast on CEO George Arison’s X and LinkedIn channels,” the announcement said.
Arison goes in three days after closing Grindr’s $250 million purchase of Freddie, the PrEP telehealth service at the center of Gayety’s earnings preview.
