Match Group is investing $100 million in Sniffies, a mobile app for gay men

Match Group, the dating app giant that owns Match, Tinder, OkCupid and Hinge, says it has invested $100 million in another mobile service designed to bring people together: a Grindr rival known as Sniffies.

The Sniffies website shows various pictures of men in their underwear. This tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the app, which is a “cruising” matching – or hookup – service for gay men. The app includes what it calls a “full real-time interactive map of nearby cruisers and popular local cruise locations.”

“From the first time I met the Sniffies team a year ago, it was clear that they had a deep understanding of their users and a strong perspective on how their community actually communicates,” Spencer Rascoff, CEO of Match Group, said in a press release on Monday.

Sniffies, based in Seattle, has an estimated 3 million monthly active users, Match says. She added that the company will continue to operate independently, with Match Group helping with the team’s “vision and growth.”

Match Group has struggled in recent years as Americans suffered from dating app fatigue and constantly expressed a desire to meet lovers the old-fashioned way — like bumping into each other in a bookstore or asking an attractive person for their phone number. In February, Match Group beat its fourth-quarter estimates but reported lower user growth on key apps like Tinder.