Chinese pop idol Lu Han under fire for investing in dating app

Chinese heartthrob Lu Han has come under fire after the Tinder-like dating app he invested in was suspected of exposing minors to sexually explicit content posted by users.

His venture capital fund dismissed the criticism, noting that the platform was purely a social media app targeting youngsters and that it had zero tolerance for pornographic acts, while voicing its ambitions to become China’s version of Snapchat.

The public outcry erupted after it surfaced that the 26-year-old singer and actor had teamed up with agribusiness giant New Hope Group and Crystal Stream Capital, a Beijing venture capital firm, to set up a new fund to back start-ups catering to the “lifestyle needs” of Chinese born in the 1990s and 2000s.

Lu, a former member of the South Korean-Chinese boy band EXO, boasts an enormous teenager following and appearances in movies such as blockbuster The Great Wall, and in China’s Lunar New Year Gala – the country’s equivalent to America’s Super Bowl.

But he is facing a reputation crisis after his fund, Qinghan, was slammed by mainland media for pouring money into “Pretending to be Lovers”, a self-labelled dating app targeting the so-called post-90s generation.

The social media platform that boasts 7 million registered users said the number of downloads shot up 70 per cent one day after the news on Lu’s investment.