The Meet Group Announces Growlr Acquisition in 2018 Financial Report

Dominic Whitlock 6th March 20196th March 2019

The Meet Group has completed a full acquisition of Growlr, the gay dating app targeted at larger, more stereotypically masculine men. The move signals the parent company’s first venture into the LGBTQ market.

Growlr has an average of 200,000 daily active users. The Meet Group aims to implement its signature live streaming product into the app by the end of 2019.

CEO Geoff Cook said in a statement: “We are thrilled to add Growlr to The Meet Group portfolio. Similar to what we have done with our other acquired properties, we plan to be aggressive in bringing our video model to Growlr.

“We also see opportunities to grow advertising revenue on the app, and we plan to further invest in user acquisition to expand brand awareness and reach”.

The Meet Group also released Q4 and full-year financial results from 2018. The dating umbrella saw a quarterly total revenue of $52.5 million, an increase of 31% year over year.

Annual adjusted EBITDA was reported as $32 million, up from $31.6 million from the previous year.

Cook continued: “Our goal is to build the best place to meet new people through video, and in the fourth quarter, we grew both the number of viewers and the number of broadcasters on our video platform from the third quarter of 2018”.

Its price in the stock market has climbed significantly in recent weeks, reaching $6.17 on Friday. This is the highest point it has been in two-and-a-half years, and marks a 130% increase year-on-year.

Cook told GDI that live streaming giant YY’s takeover of Bigo “makes a lot of sense and shines a spotlight on the amount of value being created by livestreaming around the world”.