Interview with Grindr's new CEO Jeff Bonforte and COO Rick Marini, who are part of the San Vicente investor group that bought the app from Beijing Kunlun Tech
Grindr officially has new owners. — The popular LGBTQ+ dating app has announced Jeff Bonforte, Rick Marini, and Gary Hsueh as its new CEO, COO, and CFO, respectively.
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes a four-year arc: Beijing Kunlun Tech took a 60% stake in Grindr at a $155M valuation in 2016, bought out founder Joel Simkhai entirely in 2018, then was ordered by US officials to sell after reports that engineers in Beijing were given access to Grindr users' data. The ~$608M sale to the San Vicente consortium agreed in March is now staffed, with Jeff Bonforte as CEO, Rick Marini as COO, and Gary Hsueh as CFO.
The leadership announcement lands two weeks after Reuters reported the winning investor group has financial and personal links to Beijing Kunlun itself — so the question hanging over the new executive team is not just strategy but how fully the divestment actually severed the Chinese connection.
First-order effects
- Bonforte, Marini, and Hsueh take operational control of Grindr, completing the post-Simkhai handover from Beijing Kunlun ownership to the San Vicente group.
Second-order effects
- The reported ties between San Vicente investors and Beijing Kunlun give US regulators and critics a live test of whether CFIUS-forced divestitures deliver genuine separation or just new paperwork over old relationships.
Third-order effects
- If forced sales keep installing buyer groups with links back to the original owner, national-security-driven divestiture becomes a compliance exercise rather than a real change in control — pushing regulators toward stricter approval conditions on who may buy apps holding sensitive personal data.
The trend: US national-security review is redrawing who can own consumer platforms built on intimate personal data, with Grindr the template case for forced foreign divestiture.