Barry Diller’s media empire ends a legal battle with the founders of Tinder

Match Group has agreed to pay Tinder founders $ 441m to settle a lawsuit that sparked a dating program, saying the media regime under Barry Diller had robbed them of money made from one of the hottest items in recent years.

The settlement comes at a crossroads in New York state court, with Sean Rad and several other co-defendants. built Tinder in Los Angeles ten years ago he asked a judge to grant him more than $ 2bn from Match and his former company parent, IAC.

What the court did three weeks ago was evident seer from Rad, Diller and other 2017 affiliate buyers who launched, which together grossed the equivalent of one-fifth of Tinder, about $ 600m, meaning Tinder counts at $ 3bn.

Rad and its founders later argued, arguing that the program was actually worth $ 13bn at the time. The founders said Match and IAC officials secretly agreed that Tinder was worth more than $ 3bn worth of money and compared it to how it did with Uber and Twitter.

Rad and his team originally made Tinder at Hatch Labs, a technical hub that IAC helped build webmasters. In 2014, Rad discussed a deal in which Tinder was given “put” options on how to resell their interest in the company at IAC on four occasions from 2017 to 2021.

After the initial investment in 2017, when independent banks tested Tinder for $ 3bn, the IAC immediately merged Tinder into a major Match company, blocking future developments and forcing Rad and its founders to accept a $ 3bn bid.

Match Group, which now integrates Tinder with several other social media platforms, has seen business value rise to $ 50bn. Wall Street investigators say most of these people are Tinder.

The match with the IAC contended that Rad – who immediately sold shares of IAC that was converted to Tinder in 2017 – suffered a “seller’s penalty”, and that he was given the opportunity to try to disprove the fact that Tinder was too important.

Although the lawsuit was based on corporate audits, IAC’s internal drama, which for years promoted digital stars such as Expedia and Vimeo, came out on top.

An e-mail in the case revealed that Diller shared his excitement with Tinder and Rad, informing him in an 2014 email that his yacht team was using the app. Rad was later fired as Tinder chief on two separate occasions, as the IAC management team questioned his maturity.

Match, whose shares fell 14 percent last month, said he had paid the amount he paid. Researchers at Susquehanna Financial Group had previously noted a discrepancy between $ 300m and $ 700m.

Representatives Sean Rad declined to comment. Match Group declined to comment.