美國同志社交應用Grindr找到中國夥伴
Grindr, the popular dating and social networking app for gay men, has found itself a match.
受男同性戀歡迎的約會和社交應用Grindr給自己找到了一段姻緣。
The company on Monday said it had sold a majority stake to the Beijing Kunlun Tech Company, a Chinese gaming company, valuing the six-year-old start-up at $155 million. Beijing Kunlun will acquire 60 percent of Grindr, with the remainder to be owned by Grindr employees and Joel Simkhai, the company’s founder. Grindr has previously not raised capital from outside investors.
該公司週一宣佈，已將大部分股份出售給中國遊戲公司北京崑崙萬維科技股份有限公司。作爲創業公司，Grindr已成立六年，此次交易對其估值爲1.55億美元。北京崑崙將獲得60%的股份，公司其餘股份將由Grindr員工和公司創始人喬爾·西姆卡伊(Joel Simkhai)持有。Grindr此前沒有進行過外部融資。
“We have users in every country in the world, but in order to get to the next phase of our business and grow faster, we needed a partner,” Carter McJunkin, chief operating officer of Grindr, said in an interview. Mr. McJunkin said the pairing made sense for Grindr because of Beijing Kunlun’s digital expertise, and its agreement to let Grindr’s founders continue its operating structure and retain its current team.
“我們的用戶遍佈全球每一個國家，但爲了讓業務進入下一個階段，實現更快的增長，我們需要一個合作伙伴，”Grindr首席運營官卡特·麥克瓊金(Carter McJunkin)在接受採訪時說。麥克瓊金稱，對Grindr來說，和北京崑崙搭檔是合理的，因爲後者擁有數字領域的專長，且同意讓Grindr的創始人保留當前的運營結構和團隊。
For Beijing Kunlun, Grindr offers a chance to expand beyond its core gaming assets and into other lifestyle categories, as well as markets outside China.
對北京崑崙而言，Grindr提供了一個機會，讓他們可以擴展到核心的遊戲資產以外，進入其他生活領域及國外市場。
“We have been very impressed by Grindr’s progress to date and are extremely excited about the future of the company,” Yahui Zhou, chairman of Kunlun, said in a statement. “We will continue to seek out and invest in high-quality technology companies led by top-tier management across the globe.”
“我們對Grindr目前取得的成績印象深刻，我們對它的未來充滿期待，”崑崙董事長周亞輝說。“崑崙萬維會繼續在全球尋找目標，投資一些高質量、由頂尖管理層領導的高科技企業。”
Founded in 2009 by Mr. Simkhai with a few thousand dollars of his own money, Grindr has grown to become a mainstay of the gay hookup and dating culture in 196 countries around the world. The mobile app lets users see photos of one another based on their location, and users can share photos and text messages with one another.
2009年，西姆卡伊自己出資幾千美元成立了Grindr。現在，Grindr已經成了全球196個國家的同志伴侶尋找和約會文化的主要平臺。這款移動應用讓用戶能夠根據各自的地理位置查看彼此的照片，並相互分享照片和文字信息。
Grindr sees two million regular visitors every day, who spend an average of 54 minutes using the app, according to the company. Grindr’s revenue was about $32 million in 2014, according to a financial disclosure, up 29 percent from $25 million in 2013.
據Grindr稱，公司每天有200萬活躍用戶，他們在該應用上花的時間平均是54分鐘。從披露的財務數據來看，公司2014年收入約爲3200萬美元，和2013年的2500萬美元相比增加29%。
The online dating space has heated up in the last few years, as the InterActive Corporation, the digital media conglomerate, has systematically acquired and consolidated Internet dating properties. Last year, IAC spun off its dating companies into a separate company, the Match Group, which debuted on the Nasdaq exchange in November. Tinder, the popular mobile dating app, is that company’s crown jewel, and is especially popular among young audiences.
過去幾年，隨着數字媒體企業集團IAC(InterActive Corporation)對互聯網約會服務產業展開有計劃的收購和整合，在線約會領域升溫。去年，IAC將旗下約會業務剝離，成立了獨立的公司Match Group，後者於11月在納斯達克上市。用戶甚廣的移動約會應用Tinder是該公司的拳頭產品，特別受年輕用戶的歡迎。
To grow beyond its current audience, Grindr tried its hand at courting other demographics — Blendr was the company’s attempt at a social network for more than gay and bisexual males — but those efforts have largely fizzled.
爲了擴展到現有用戶之外，Grindr試過取悅其他羣體。比如，該公司嘗試推出的社交網站Blendr，面向的就不僅僅是同性戀和雙性戀男性。但這些努力大多虎頭蛇尾。
“We experimented in other audiences, but we decided we do the gay audience best,” Mr. McJunkin said. The company’s future growth prospects rest on “solving more problems” for Grindr’s core gay user group, including things like places to go and things to do, he said. “We’ve expanded to make it more of a lifestyle company,” he said.
“我們在其他羣體中做過實驗，但還是確定最擅長同志領域，”麥克瓊金說。他表示，公司未來的增長前景在於爲Grindr的核心男同用戶羣體“解決更多問題”，包括可以去的地方和可以做的事情等。“我們進行了拓展，希望成爲一家更生活化的公司，”他說。
