Founder of Chinese gay dating app Blued optimistic about overseas expansion after US listing
- BlueCity, best-known for its dating app Blued, made history as the world’s first gay social network to become a publicly-traded company on Wednesday
- Despite a global backlash against Chinese technology, the founder of China’s largest gay dating app said he is optimistic about its prospects overseas
As a young man living in China, Ma Baoli thought he was the only gay person in the world.
“There was no internet … When I wanted to find a boyfriend, I had no way to go about it,” he said. “At the time everyone just wrote their dating information on public washroom walls. What a miserable era.”
In 2000, while still working as a full-time police officer, Ma founded one of China’s earliest and most influential online gay forums, Danlan.org, under his alias Geng Le.
This site, whose name means “light blue” in Chinese, paved the way for Ma’s later venture BlueCity, which on Wednesday made history as the world’s first gay social network to become a publicly-traded company.
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By going public in the US, Ma said he hoped the company could “present a good image” of China stocks.
“We should comply strictly with local laws and regulations, which are fundamental and important to win the trust of the public, users and regulators,” he said. “The relationships among countries may entail little bumps, but the overall direction should be positive.”
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Launched in 2012, Blued has more than 49 million registered users and 6 million monthly active users (MAUs) worldwide, making it one of the world’s leading LGBTQ+ platforms, according to a report by independent research firm Frost & Sullivan for BlueCity. It is the largest dating app by far in China but nearly half of its MAUs come from outside of its home market, and it was also the market leader in India, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam in 2019, according to the Frost & Sullivan report.
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BlueCity said in its prospectus that it “strictly limits” the use of its platform by underage users. “Each newly registered user in China is subject to a manual review process as a measure to prevent minor usage,” according to the prospectus.
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Grindr did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its latest IPO plans.
Compared to Grindr and other rivals, BlueCity stands out by offering “services that centre on the needs of the LGBTQ+ group, such as surrogacy,” according to Ma Shicong (no relation to Ma Baoli), a senior analyst at research firm Analysys.
The LGBTQ+ network launched a platform, Bluedbaby, in 2017 to help gay Chinese men have children by linking them up with overseas surrogates. The service, which covers all steps of the process from finding an egg donor to navigating contracts, is accessible both through the Blued app and as a separate platform.
Last year, the network also rolled out He Health, offering access to a wide variety of HIV-related medication and consulting services as well as other drugs and nutritional supplements for men’s health.
So far, the two newer services are only available in China, but founder Ma said that he is “very sure” that the services will eventually reach users in other parts of the world, probably starting with Asian countries like South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand where Blued is already popular.
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Nevertheless, BlueCity’s domestic market remains its most important, generating 90 per cent of the company's revenue in the first quarter of 2020, according to its prospectus.
While same-sex relationships are still a legal grey area in China, Blued’s founder said the LGBTQ+ community has seen more acceptance, recognition and inclusiveness in the past decade or two.
“The Chinese government has said several times in international meetings that it does not discriminate against sexual minorities and promises equal health and employment rights for LGBTQ+,” he added.
Ma Shicong agreed that there is still room for growth in the market for gay social networks in China.
“Chinese society is becoming more open and diverse, and people have a better understanding of their own sexual orientation and those of others,” she said.
However, the Analysys senior analyst said it was less certain whether the regulatory environment would change to match more liberal social views in China in the near term.
“Society will influence policymaking, but it will take an undetermined period of time that is likely to have ups and downs,” she said.
