Leading dating app Tinder has acquired photo-messaging company Tappy for an undisclosed fee as the firm looks to roll out its subscription-based Tinder Moments service.
The start-up owned by IAC, the holding company of over 150 internet firms including Ask.com, OK Cupid and Vimeo, forged ahead with the deal to pick up the Snapchat rival in a move acknowledging the importance of expiring images growth at the expense of standard text services.
Tappy, available on Android and iOS – in similar style to the Tinder app – sees all conversations kicked off with an image in order to convey a greater sense of emotion and colour to conversations.
Sean Rad, cofounder and chief executive of Tinder, told TechCrunch: “We’re growing and recruiting like crazy, it’s incredibly difficult to find talented people to join us fast enough to keep up with our roadmap for 2015, which includes some ambitious plans.
“When I spoke with Brian [Norgard, Tappy co-founder], we found that our goals for two separate products were such a great match. There are some specific things that they’ve done in the past that we wouldn’t have to figure out on our own moving forward.”
Brian Norgard, co-founder of Tappy, added: “I’m a bit of a historian when it comes to the internet, and I know that things that grow like Tinder has don’t come around very often.
“The chance to work with Sean was too strong of a draw because we knew that if we could couple Tappy DNA with Tinder DNA that we can do awesome stuff. Messaging has gotten very overheated, and this gives us the chance to lead from the front.”
Tinder sees 1.5 billion swipes every day, 21 million matches each day – the acquisition of Tappy may come as part of the service’s attempt at monetisation by offering subscribers access to premium features.
Like what you see? We can email it to you
