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Ashley Madison Wanted To Acquire Grindr But Couldn't Afford The $100M Price Tag

Moral of the story: Grindr is much, much bigger than anyone expected.

Internal documents leaked during the recent hack of Ashley Madison reveal the straight hookup site once sought to acquire Grindr, its gay mobile competition, for nearly $70 million several years ago.

Leaked email communication between Ashley Madison founder Noel Biderman and Grindr founder Joel Simkhai dates back to 2012, when the two moguls began discussing ways they could advertise on each other’s platform.

According to Forbes, Biderman and executives at Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison’s parent company, began discussing possibly acquiring Grindr when rumors began swirling about a sale of the site earlier this year.

Related: “My Ugly Grindr Hookup Stole My TV!”

Biderman’s quest to acquire Grindr led to an exchange of the company’s “private and confidential” revenue data — documents reveal that Grindr was said to be valued at $31 million in 2014 and, still growing, an impressive $38.1 million in 2015.

Forbes also reports that Grindr boasted 4 million active monthly users and up to 2 million daily active users, who spend up to an hour on the app every day. This year, there are a reported 324,000 paying subscribers on the app.

Follow-up emails between Biderman and other Avid Life Media executives show the company was prepared to make Simkhai a $60-70 million offer earlier this year, but failed to move forward with negotiations after learning he probably wouldn’t take less than $100 million for 51 percent of the company.

Emails about the possible acquisition abruptly ended, and nobody from Ashley Madison, Avid Life Media, or Grindr has offered to comment on the failed deal. Fortunately, it’s pretty safe to assume now that the deal is officially dead.

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