In this photo exemplar a Grindr logo is seen displayed on a smartphone on April 01, 2019.
Rafael Henrique | LightRocket | Getty Images
Chinese gaming circle Beijing Kunlun Tech said on Monday it would revive plans for an initial public offering (IPO) of popular gay age app Grindr, after a U.S. national security panel dropped its opposition to the plan.
Kunlun said in May it had agreed to a request by the Council on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to sell Grindr, setting a June 2020 deadline to do so and putting preparations for an IPO of Grindr on pat.
A source familiar with the matter said on Monday that Kunlun’s efforts to sell Grindr outright were remaining even as the IPO preparations were relaunched.
A Grindr spokeswoman declined to share more information about the IPO plans. Kunlun did not react to requests for comment. The U.S Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CFIUS has not disclosed its things about Kunlun’s ownership of Grindr. However, the United States has been increasingly scrutinizing app developers over the sanctuary of personal data they handle, especially if some of it involves U.S. military or intelligence personnel.
Reuters reported in May that Kunlun had reality some Beijing-based engineers access to the personal information of millions of Americans, including private messages and HIV status.
Kunlun indicated in May it would shut down Grindr’s China operations and would not send any sensitive user data to China, in an toil to address concerns over data privacy.
Grindr will be listed on a stock exchange outside China, with the timing of the decamp to be decided according to overseas capital market conditions, Kunlun said in a filing to the Shenzhen stock exchange on Monday.
Kunlun is one of China’s broadest mobile gaming companies. It acquired a majority stake in Grindr in 2016 for $93 million and bought out the remainder of the assembly in 2018. It did so without submitting the transactions for CFIUS review.
Kunlun’s control of Grindr has fueled concerns among confidentiality advocates in the United States. Democratic U.S. Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to Grindr newest year demanding answers about how the app would protect users’ privacy under its Chinese owner.