The local team behind the LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr is preparing to move into a new office later this summer with plans to grow the company’s presence in Chicago.
The company announced the move Thursday, citing the app’s “strong financial performance” in 2023, according to a news release. The new space is under construction, said Joel Keating, senior vice president of engineering. The plan is to move in by Aug. 1.
The new space is half of the top floor of an office building at 230 W. Monroe St., Keating said. With current configuration plans, the space could hold up to 60 employees. There is also room to grow, Keating said, which the team hopes to do.
Keating is the head of the app’s engineering team and based in Chicago. He said the team’s current office at 625 W. Adams St. is part of a WeWork space, which they’ve “effectively outgrown.”
The Chicago office is hiring about a dozen new positions with intentions to add more in the next few years. Roles include data engineering, cloud engineering and engineering management.
The company opened a Chicago office in September 2021. What started as a team of about four grew to some 30 employees working out of the Chicago office.
“We anticipate that Grindr’s expansion will not only bolster our city’s tech sector but also contribute to our ongoing efforts to foster a vibrant and inclusive business environment,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in the news release.
There are three other offices in California and one in New York, including where the app was started in 2009 in West Hollywood. The other offices are “quite a bit more mixed” in their work, Keating said, handling other branches of the company such as product, sales, finance and more, as well as some engineering.
Grindr’s return-to-office policy has been the center of a dispute with its staff, which is seeking to unionize with the Communication Workers of America. App employees across various departments, including engineering, marketing, design and IT first filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board in July 2023.
Two weeks later, the union said, the company instituted a new return-to-office policy requiring staff to work in-person two days a week at offices in several cities, including Chicago. In an unfair labor practice charge filed with the NLRB, the union alleged the policy was retaliatory. Workers were given two weeks to decide whether they would work in-office — which would require some employees to relocate — or resign, the Grindr union said in a news release at the time. About 80 of nearly 180 staff members resigned, according to the union. NLRB officials are still investigating the union’s allegation that the RTO policy was illegally retaliatory.
In a statement, Grindr said it had planned to implement a return-to-office policy before the union drive.
“It was only after staff knew that the transition to in-office work was underway that employees began signing union cards,” the company said.
In an election held by the NLRB in December, workers voted 19 to 13 to unionize, but 55 ballots were challenged, leaving the results in limbo. In January, labor board officials ordered seven of the challenged ballots counted and tossed out two, but most remain uncounted and dependent upon the investigation of unfair labor practice charges filed against Grindr.
“We respect and support our team members’ rights to make their own decision about union representation through the NLRB’s secret ballot election process,” the company said. “We will continue to work together to make Grindr a great place to work.”
The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2022. Grindr employed about 130 people total as of the end of March, which is “still far from” what the employment level was early last year, according to a shareholder letter released in early May.
In the first quarter of 2024, total revenue increased by 35% year-over-year to $75 million, with a net loss of $9.4 million. The growth was driven by more paying users, the company said in its shareholder letter.
The company’s revenue grew by about 33% from over $195 million in 2022 to nearly $260 million in 2023.
Average monthly active users of the app were up 7% year-over-year to 13.7 million in the first quarter, while average paying users increased by 17% year-over-year to 1 million, according to the shareholder letter.
Grindr’s engineering team increased by over 50% quarter-over-quarter in the first three months of the year, the letter said.
Keating said the Chicago office is primarily the engineering division for the social networking app. Ultimately, growing the local team is also an effort to make Chicago the “engineering hub.”
“Our plan is to really invest in Chicago because not only does it have a very diverse economy and is a really great place to live and work, but there’s also a really strong pool of engineering talent in Chicago,” Keating said. “Another reason is Chicago’s very thriving and large LGBTQ community, which is very much ingrained in the culture.”
Keating said a Grindr bus is going to make its way from California to New York with a stop in Chicago during Pride Fest weekend in June. In a news release Wednesday, the company announced the “Grindr Ride America” tour to celebrate the app’s 15th birthday.
The Grindr engineering team will also be at Pride Fest, he said, which is a “great opportunity to engage outside of office elements.”
“We want people to know that we’re here and there are jobs here,” Keating said. “It’s a really fun culture and a thriving business.”
