Muzz, formerly Muzmatch, a Muslim dating application has reportedly been sued by Tinder and Hinge’s parent company – Match Group. The legal decision supposedly came right after Muzz rejected Match Group’s $35 million proposal to purchase the platform.
Shahzad Younas, Founder and CEO of Muzz has been actively posting on social media about the scandal, his TikTok video “Tinder/Hinge owners are suing us for the third time!” has garnered over 328K views since it was posted two days ago.
“They’re trying to shut us down,” he says.
Younas goes on to explain in the two minute video that Match Group is a multi-billion dollar conglomerate with over 50 of the biggest dating applications around the world including Tinder, Hinge, PlentyOfFish and OkCupid. The group holds around 50 percent of the global market share.
“These guys are huge, they’ve pretty much got a monopoly in the whole dating world, and they have tried to buy us three times,” he distressedly explains.
Younas reveals that the group first tried to purchase Muzz back in 2017 for $15 million, a proposal that was rejected. They then tried again at a reported $25 million, another rejected attempt.
In 2019, Match Group brought another proposal to Muzz with an offer of $35 million, which was also rejected.
As seen in the video, Younas explains that the reason that he is unwilling to sell the company, even at a multi-million dollar rate, is because of how much it means to him. “I’m a Muslim, this means a lot to me. We cannot just have a random company out there controlling how Muslims do this. It’s too important to our community,” he said.
Match Group acquired Hawaya in 2019 which was then shut down earlier this year as part of a new strategy to “focus on growing brands.”
Younes went on to say that “after they failed to acquire us, they then decided to sue us, both here in the UK and also in the US.”
Muzz’s costly legal battle with Match Group
Match Group made multiple claims against the dating app including using the word “match” described as an attempt for Muzz to imitate the dating giant, which the company denied. They also sued over the swiping gesture, which Match Group holds a patent of in the US.
The Muslim dating app agreed to settle with Match Group by getting rid of the swiping gesture, leaving only the UK lawsuit to fight.
Younes explains that Muzz spent millions of dollars on legal fees which is major for a company of their size as compared to Match Group.
The company also had to rebrand from Muzzmatch to Muzz after losing the UK case. However, after the case, Muzz was granted an appeal on two grounds.
Following the court appeal date while awaiting the appeal decision, Muzz discovered that Match Group sued them again in the US.
“Why are they going after us? That’s a big question,” Younas says in the video, “They want to dominate the global market, we’re the biggest in the Muslim space and that’s why they are going after us. It’s kinda’ obvious.”
“These guys just want to bury us in legal fees, slow us down and try to kill us,” he exclaimed. Younes called out to the Federal Trade Commission to look into anti-trust rulings.
“We’re not going to be bullied by these guys. We won’t be bought by them. We will fight right until the end.” Younas concluded by asking viewers to share the explainer video to shed light on the situation.
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