The co-founders of Tinder, as well as eight other former and current executives of the dating app, are suing the service’s current owners, alleging that they manipulated the valuation of the company — denying them of billions of dollars they were owed in the process.
According to CNN, the suit was filed Tuesday in state court in New York, and seeks at least $2 billion in damages from Match Group and its parent company, IAC/InterActiveCorp.
An analysis of Tinder done in 2017 by Wall Street banks set the app’s value at $3 billion, which was unchanged from a valuation that had been done two years earlier, despite rapid growth in revenue and subscribers. The suit claims that executives with Match and IAC deliberately manipulated the data that was given to the bank in order to keep the 2017 valuation low. That valuation then deprived some early Tinder employees of millions or even billions of dollars, according to the suit.
The suit also includes an allegation of sexual harassment against Tinder’s former CEO, Greg Blatt.
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