Apps & Consumer
Tinder launches Group Hangouts to match friend groups, not just pairs
Tinder is rolling out "Group Hangouts," a feature that lets groups of friends discover, match, and make plans with other groups around shared activities.
As younger users tire of endless swiping, dating apps are adapting to a generation that wants dating to feel more social and rooted in real-world experiences. Tinder’s answer, announced Wednesday, lets users choose an activity and invite at least two friends to join a group; once the group has at least three members, its profile can appear in Tinder’s main card stack, where other groups can discover it. Groups can hold up to 15 people. Users browse other groups and “like” ones that catch their interest, and if at least one person from each group likes the other, the groups are connected in a shared chat to make plans together.
Tinder is giving users some control over the experience: members can leave a conversation without leaving the friend group, and can block or report another participant if they become uncomfortable. The feature sits at the top of Tinder’s main home screen and is rolling out in phases in the U.S. and select markets, with more markets expected to follow.
Group Hangouts builds on Tinder’s earlier group-dating push. Last year, the company launched “Double Date,” letting users pair up with a friend to browse other pairs; Group Hangouts expands that to larger groups and shifts the experience toward a social outing rather than a traditional one-on-one date. “One inspiration was seeing a college women’s volleyball team make a Tinder profile while traveling for away games, so they could explore a new town and meet locals,” Claire Watanabe, Tinder’s VP of product management, told TechCrunch. “In practice, we’re seeing groups stay pretty tight, most people are hanging out with their close circle of friends, not organizing something huge.”
Tinder has pushed toward real-world experiences for some time: back in March, it launched an Events tab for local activities like speakeasies, bowling, and pottery classes, and this month expanded in-person events to dozens of additional cities. Rival Bumble is moving in a similar direction with its “Plans” feature for casual, group-oriented meetups. The push comes as Tinder works to re-engage users during a difficult stretch — revenue declined in the latest quarter, and monthly active users fell 7% in the second quarter, following an 8% decline the quarter before.
Why it matters
Tinder is betting that group-based, activity-driven matching can reverse a user decline that one-on-one swiping alone hasn’t fixed, as rivals like Bumble chase the same shift toward real-world, social dating.