ADAGE – Hily has increased its brand marketing budget from $500K to $3M since Julia Kolesnyk joined two years ago. She built its marketing operation from scratch and now leads a 13-person team. With less money than larger dating apps, Hily is focusing on YouTube rather than expensive TV advertising. Its latest campaign promotes authentic dating profiles without AI-generated enhancements.
BENZINGA – Grindr generates $3M in revenue per employee. The platform outperforms both Meta and Apple, which each sit at $2.5M. It also easily surpasses Alphabet with $2.1M in revenue per employee, and Microsoft with $1.5M. In an interview with the Financial Times, Grindr CEO George Arison detailed plans for a luxury tier designed as a “social club for the modern gay man,” targeting “people who have significant disposable income and who value their time in a very significant way.”
CNN – Dating apps are turning to IRL events to bring users together. Surf, a dating app focused on shared interests and fitness, runs blind dates through its partnership with Hyrox. Breeze, a Dutch dating app with no in-app chat, arranges dates at partner bars and group dates for six to ten people. Feeld, a dating app for non-monogamy, polyamory and kink, also organises in-person activities for its members.
STORYBOARD 18 – Anthropic found that a China-based studio had used its Claude AI to operate ~ 4,700 fake profiles across 20 dating apps. ~75% of the profiles shown to users were AI personas, which exchanged 2M+ messages with 25K people in two weeks. Human workers handled video calls and social-media follow-backs to make the profiles appear real. Anthropic banned the accounts and reported the apps to Apple and Google.
MASHABLE – Match’s 2026 Singles in America survey found that 76% of U.S. singles believe romantic love can last forever, although only 16% are actively seeking a committed relationship. Most prefer flexible relationship roles over traditional gender roles, despite increased exposure to “tradwife” content on social media. Financial compatibility is also important, with 89% saying couples should share financial decisions equally and 71% saying openness about money builds trust. Singles remain cautious about AI in dating, but attitudes are softening: 34% now consider AI-edited profile photos a dealbreaker, down from 44% last year. However, 66% believe AI cannot replace human connection.
BUSINESS INSIDER – Blackstone is preparing to exit its remaining stake in Bumble after nearly seven years, despite the dating company’s shares falling 96% from their peak. Blackstone and Accel invested $2.1B in Bumble’s parent company in 2019 and ultimately recouped roughly twice that amount, largely by selling shares early. Blackstone recovered much of its investment around Bumble’s 2021 IPO and sold another $1B of shares later that year. Its remaining 22.4M shares are now worth just over $60M. Blackstone has been reducing its position through an agreement with UBS and could be fully out by early 2027. The exit comes as Bumble undergoes a turnaround, with paying users down 16.4% YoY in Q2 2026, while the company is also reportedly exploring a potential sale.
LINKEDIN – Thursday has raised $1.5M from existing backers, filling 76% of its current angel allocation. Co-founders George Rawlings and Matthew McNeill Love are now launching a “500 Calls in 50 Days” campaign, aiming to speak with 500 potential investors before closing the round. The meetings will include VCs, angels, founders, and family offices.
PITCH – Matrimony.com CEO Murugavel Janakiraman says trust remains the key differentiator in online matchmaking, with ~80% of the company’s traffic coming organically. Matrimony.com receives close to 8M sign-ups annually, and Janakiraman says ~1M people find a life partner through the platform each year. The company operates ~ 300 matrimony sites targeting different communities and customer segments, alongside services including Elite Matrimony, Jodi and Rainbow Love. It also employs ~500 relationship managers for its Assisted Matchmaking service, combining algorithmic recommendations with human matchmaking.
PROLIFIC NORTH – Chapter 2 Dating has reached break-even for the first time, following three consecutive months of record revenue. Its three platforms, Chapter2Dating.app, WidowsFire.dating and SoberLove.app, now have ~20K members across the UK, US, Canada and Australia, with around half based in the US. Chapter 2 has raised £450K to date and has another £50K of EIS-approved investment available. The company acquired white-label dating platform M14 in September 2025, bringing its technology in-house. It is now planning further international expansion and developing a new AI product.
LTR – In this conversation, Mark Brooks sits down with Eric Strauss, former Founder and CEO of Cupid.com and President of Transworld Business Brokers in Manhattan, to explore the realities of building a business with an eventual exit in mind.
Eric reflects on the sale of Cupid.com and Regional Help Wanted, before sharing lessons from his years helping entrepreneurs sell their companies. They discuss how to prepare a business for acquisition, why clean and transparent financials matter, how valuation and pricing affect the sales process, and why overpricing can actually make it harder to attract serious buyers.
The conversation also explores how buyers are identified, how a competitive process can help drive the best outcome, and why founders should start preparing for a sale long before they are ready to put their business on the market.
[**See the video here on YouTube**]
The February LTR was kindly sponsored by HubPeople, LeadThink and Courtland Brooks