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Blued Joins Extension Of Hornet’s $8m Funding Round With New Global Partnership

hornet

Two of the world’s largest gay networks, Blued and Hornet, have just announced a new partnership.

In November, Hornet secured a massive $8m in funding, led by Ventech China, to help expand its global user base.

And now it has been announced that Blued will be participating in an extension of this funding round.

Launched in 2012, Chinese gay social network Blued has over 27m users, with 6m outside China, and offers both live streaming and advertising business opportunities to LGBT companies.

In July, it raised a Series C round at an apparent valuation of $300m.

The new “mutually beneficial cooperation” between the two gay dating companies seeks to expand upon the momentum and growth rates Hornet has experienced recently.

The CEO of Blued, Geng Le, said: “Hornet has one of the most successful growth rates of all the gay social apps on today’s global market.

“We share a vision to bring gay apps outside of the first generation hook-up model, and into digital homes for the gay community.”

Hornet says it is currently the biggest gay social network in France, Russia, Brazil and Turkey, with over 15m total users and 3m MAUs.

In July, Hornet also announced the acquisition of Vespa, a gay city guide created by Christof Wittig, who co-founded Hornet back in 2011.

Speaking about its latest partnership, Wittig, who was reinstated as Hornet CEO, said: “Gay apps have always been looked upon as siloed divisions of the same global community.

“This cooperation unites Hornet’s and Blued’s shared vision, that of our respective audiences fostering growth while extending and respecting what it means to truly be a worldwide community.”

Read more about Hornet’s funding round here.

Simon Edmunds

Simon is the former editor of Global Dating Insights. Born in Newcastle, he has an English degree from Queen Mary, London and after working for the NHS, trained as a journalist with the Press Association. Passionate about music, journalism and Newcastle United.

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