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Grindr\u2019s majority owners are scrambling to take the LGBTQ+ dating app private after a stock decline triggered a personal financial crisis, according to a report from Semafor<\/a>.<\/p>\n The owners in question are Raymond Zage, a former hedge fund manager and U.S. expat now based in Singapore, and James Lu, a Chinese-American entrepreneur and former Amazon and Baidu exec. Together they led the 2020 acquisition<\/a> of Grindr from Chinese ownership for over $600 million, then took the app public in 2022 through a blank-check merger<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reportedly, Zage and Lu, who together control more than 60% of Grindr, pledged nearly all their shares as collateral for personal loans from a unit of Singapore\u2019s sovereign wealth fund Temasek. After Grindr began a slide at the end of September, those loans became undercollateralized (worth less than the debt), so the Temasek unit seized and sold some of the shares last week.<\/p>\n Grindr\u2019s stock slide appears disconnected from business fundamentals \u2013 profits were up 25% in the second quarter, Semafor notes, though it has seen some executive turnover<\/a>; there has been some investor concern about narrowing margins<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n Either way, the pair are now said to be in talks with Fortress Investment Group \u2013 itself now majority owned by Mubadala Investment Company, which is itself<\/em> owned by the government of Abu Dhabi \u2013 to secure financing for a buyout at around $15 per share, which would value Grindr at around $3 billion. Shares jumped<\/a> following the report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n