美国同志社交应用Grindr找到中国伙伴

Grindr, the popular dating and social networking app for gay men, has found itself a match.

受男同性恋欢迎的约会和社交应用Grindr给自己找到了一段姻缘。

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.

该公司周一宣布，已将大部分股份出售给中国游戏公司北京昆仑万维科技股份有限公司。作为创业公司，Grindr已成立六年，此次交易对其估值为1.55亿美元。北京昆仑将获得60%的股份，公司其余股份将由Grindr员工和公司创始人乔尔·西姆卡伊(Joel Simkhai)持有。Grindr此前没有进行过外部融资。

“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.

“我们的用户遍布全球每一个国家，但为了让业务进入下一个阶段，实现更快的增长，我们需要一个合作伙伴，”Grindr首席运营官卡特·麦克琼金(Carter McJunkin)在接受采访时说。麦克琼金称，对Grindr来说，和北京昆仑搭档是合理的，因为后者拥有数字领域的专长，且同意让Grindr的创始人保留当前的运营结构和团队。

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.

对北京昆仑而言，Grindr提供了一个机会，让他们可以扩展到核心的游戏资产以外，进入其他生活领域及国外市场。

“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.”

“我们对Grindr目前取得的成绩印象深刻，我们对它的未来充满期待，”昆仑董事长周亚辉说。“昆仑万维会继续在全球寻找目标，投资一些高质量、由顶尖管理层领导的高科技企业。”

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，西姆卡伊自己出资几千美元成立了Grindr。现在，Grindr已经成了全球196个国家的同志伴侣寻找和约会文化的主要平台。这款移动应用让用户能够根据各自的地理位置查看彼此的照片，并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.

据Grindr称，公司每天有200万活跃用户，他们在该应用上花的时间平均是54分钟。从披露的财务数据来看，公司2014年收入约为3200万美元，和2013年的2500万美元相比增加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.

过去几年，随着数字媒体企业集团IAC(InterActive Corporation)对互联网约会服务产业展开有计划的收购和整合，在线约会领域升温。去年，IAC将旗下约会业务剥离，成立了独立的公司Match Group，后者于11月在纳斯达克上市。用户甚广的移动约会应用Tinder是该公司的拳头产品，特别受年轻用户的欢迎。

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.

为了扩展到现有用户之外，Grindr试过取悦其他群体。比如，该公司尝试推出的社交网站Blendr，面向的就不仅仅是同性恋和双性恋男性。但这些努力大多虎头蛇尾。

“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.

“我们在其他群体中做过实验，但还是确定最擅长同志领域，”麦克琼金说。他表示，公司未来的增长前景在于为Grindr的核心男同用户群体“解决更多问题”，包括可以去的地方和可以做的事情等。“我们进行了拓展，希望成为一家更生活化的公司，”他说。