A look at China’s Kunlun, whose ownership of gay dating app Grindr is seen as a national security risk by the US
- The intervention by a US national security panel may now force Kunlun to sell the popular dating service
When Beijing Kunlun Tech bought the remaining shares it did not own in gay dating app Grindr in 2018, the Chinese video games developer said the acquisition was “critical” to its social media and content platform strategy that would help it become a leading global internet company.
Today, however, Kunlun may be forced to sell off Grindr after a US government body – the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) – told the firm that its ownership of the app constituted a national security risk, according to a Reuters report that cited unnamed sources.
That government intervention would push aside Kunlun’s plans for an overseas public listing of Grindr, which described itself as the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. It had an estimated 27 million users as of 2017.
Founded in 2008, Kunlun specialised in publishing browser-based video games, including popular role-playing titles Eden Eternal and Glory Destiny Online. It is also the China distributor for Clash of the Clans, a hit mobile game created by Finnish developer Supercell, which was acquired by internet giant Tencent Holdings in 2016.
The Beijing-based company was founded by Zhou Yahui, a graduate of China’s prestigious Tsinghua University. He became an overnight billionaire, with an estimated net worth of US$1.7 billion, when Kunlun went public on Shenzhen’s ChiNext board in January 2015.