Former policeman, Geng Le, who founded the dating app, Blued, said his goal is to liberate fellow homosexuals across the globe.
BEIJING: A Chinese gay dating app company has attracted a massive $30 million from investors, who expect vast numbers of gay men and women to use the platform for finding partners. The money has flown in within days of Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledging his homosexuality.
Former policeman, Geng Le, who founded the dating app, Blued, said his goal is to liberate fellow homosexuals across the globe. He is now working on a initial public offer of stocks to raise additional funds, which will help build a communication platform for the lesbian community called Pinkd.
"The investment for Blued marks a record high among all investment going to a gay-male related business, and I am so proud it happened in China," Geng was quoted by China Daily as saying.
"We now have a long-term plan to design and introduce a lesbian networking application, Pinkd, to help them find friends and possibly true love," China Daily quoted him saying.
The app company is attracting funds because investors believe there are hundreds of thousands of gay people waiting to tie the knot or find live-in partners. Nearly two-third of Geng's 40-member team are homosexuals.
"We are aiming high for a final IPO, which would celebrate gay culture and business and, more important, demonstrate ever increasing social tolerance in the country," he said.
Geng said Blued has about 15 million registered users, some of whom are in foreign countries, and an average of three million log into the application each day. One estimate outs China's gay male population at around 40 million.
Though China legalized homosexuality in 1997 and removed it from the list of mental diseases in 2001, a lot of "social stigma and discrimination against it does exist today," he said.
