Grindr reported second-quarter revenue of $138 million, up 33% year over year against a consensus near $132.4 million. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $58 million. App revenue grew 30%, advertising grew 44%. Management raised full-year revenue guidance to roughly $540 million and adjusted EBITDA guidance to about $232 million.
The stock fell about 3.3%.
The quarter
| Metric | Q2 2026 | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $138M | +33%, beat $132.4M consensus |
| Adjusted EBITDA | $58M | ~42% margin |
| App revenue | — | +30% |
| Advertising revenue | — | +44% |
| Full-year revenue guidance | ~$540M | raised |
| Full-year EBITDA guidance | ~$232M | raised |
Why it fell anyway
Earnings per share missed. That is the whole mechanical explanation — a bottom-line miss overshadowed a top-line beat, and the market took the stock down on a day when the S&P 500 was up 0.4% and the Nasdaq up 0.9%. Nothing was hiding in the market backdrop; the selling was about this company.
The deeper reason is what you are paying. At 34 times trailing earnings, the stock is priced for growth to continue. When a stock carries a growth multiple, the market stops grading on the beat and starts grading on anything that hints the growth is getting more expensive to buy. An EPS miss alongside a revenue beat is exactly that hint: revenue arrived, profit did not arrive with it.
The advertising number is the interesting one
App revenue up 30% is the subscription engine working. Advertising up 44% is something else — it means the platform is converting attention it already has into a second revenue stream that costs almost nothing incremental to serve.
That matters for margins. Adjusted EBITDA of $58 million on $138 million of revenue is a 42% margin, which is unusual in consumer internet at this size. Guidance implies roughly $232 million of EBITDA on $540 million of revenue for the year — the company is telling you it expects to hold that margin as it scales.
Chief executive George Arison said AI had raised engineering output about 2.5-fold, work that would otherwise have required hiring roughly 200 more engineers. Treat the multiplier as a claim, not a measurement. The verifiable version is the cost line: if AI is doing what he says, headcount growth stays flat while revenue compounds, and that shows up in margins over the next few quarters. Watch the margin, not the anecdote.
The take-private overhang
Earlier, shareholders proposed taking the company private at $18 per share. The board's special committee halted talks over financing uncertainty, and the stock fell about 10% on that news.
That episode still shapes the setup. The stock at $16.58 sits just under a price someone was willing to name, against a 52-week range of $9.73 to $18.69. A failed buyout at $18 does two things: it puts a soft reference point near the current price, and it reminds you that a bid which cannot be financed is not a valuation — it is an opinion that ran out of money.
How I read it
Grindr is the only genuinely growing asset in listed dating, and it is priced accordingly. Market cap of $2.88 billion, trailing revenue of $509.8 million growing 32%, five analysts averaging a $20.80 target.
The thesis is simple and unforgiving: you are underwriting 30%+ growth continuing. If it does, 34x resolves quickly, because at $540 million of revenue and $232 million of EBITDA the multiple compresses on its own. If growth decelerates to the high teens, the multiple has a long way to fall before it meets the fundamentals.
What I would want before paying up: two more quarters of advertising growing faster than app revenue. That is the line that tells you the platform is monetising attention rather than squeezing subscribers, and it is the difference between a durable margin and a temporary one.
The risk nobody prices properly here is regulatory and platform risk. A business whose distribution runs entirely through two app stores, in a category that attracts age-verification legislation, carries a tail risk that does not show up in any multiple.