Tinder Acquires Picture Messaging App Tappy

TappyDating app Tinder has made its first acquisition, buying picture messaging service Tappy for an undisclosed sum.

With Tappy, users send photos to friends to begin conversations. In a Snapchat-style twist, all of this is then deleted after 24 hours.

This is very similar to Tinders own Moments feature, launched last summer. Moments is a way of sending pictures to prospective dates, which last one day before disappearing.

It seems that this similarity may actually be the thinking behind the acquisition. Sean Rad, co-founder and CEO of Tinder, told TechCrunch that “we found that our goals for two separate products were such a great match,” and that acquiring Tappys talent gave it ready-made solutions to problems it would have to solve with its own offering.

“We’re very good at connecting people, but there’s this ‘what happens after that?’ moment that we want to improve,” said Rad. “We not only want to get better at the way we use criteria to connect people, but we want to broaden the reasons for connecting in the first place. The Tappy team will help us tackle both fronts, the pre-match experience of creating that first connection and the post-match experience of communicating with that person.”