China gay dating app Blued pursues US IPO
BlueCity Holdings, the company behind Chinese gay dating platform Blued, has filed an application to list on NASDAQ, which would provide a liquidity event for several PE and VC investors.
Shunwei Capital is the largest external shareholder with 12.3%, while CDH Investments and Golden Bull Capital own 9.4% and 7.6%. Crystal Stream Capital, NewQuest Capital Partners, and Vision Knight Capital each have stakes of less than 6%, according to a prospectus.
In 2014, BlueCity received RMB10 million ($1.6 million) in Series A funding from Crystal Stream and DCM led a $30 million Series B later the same year. Series C and extended Series C rounds followed in 2015 and 2016, led by Ventech China and Vision Knight, respectively. CDH then anchored a $100 million Series D in 2018.
BlueCity has a registered user base of more than 49 million. Average monthly active users (MAUs) reached six million in the three months ended March, up from 4.1 million for the same period in 2018. Average MAUs were six times those of the next largest player in the online dating market last year, according to Frost & Sullivan. Average daily active users (DAUs) were nearly seven times larger.
BlueCity has successfully expanded into overseas markets, becoming the number one online LGBTQ community in India, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam by average MAUs in 2019. Overseas users account for about half of overall MAUs. However, the company still makes most of its money in China. Overseas MAUs contributed just 9.9% of total revenue in the three months ended March.
In addition to its core dating feature, BlueCity has a live-streaming service and a surrogacy matchmaking service Bluedbaby. There is also a dedicated healthcare service known as He Health. In 2019, live streaming accounted for 88.5% of revenue. The rest came from membership services and advertising.
BlueCity's revenue increased by 51.4% year-over-year to RMB758.9 million ($107.2 million) in 2019, while its net loss narrowed from RMB144.5 million to RMB52.9 million. For the three months ended March, revenue rose 42.8% to RMB207.5 million and the net loss fell by 71.2% to RMB7.6 million.
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