Tinder owner Match Group taps Sam Ahn as Asia's chief innovation officer

Match Group Inc., operating online dating and chat platforms like Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid in some 40 languages, has appointed its subsidiary Hyperconnect LLC’s co-founder and chief executive Sam Ahn as Asia’s chief innovation officer, the company said earlier this week. 

With the newly created position, Ahn will drive the company’s innovation and leverage emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. He won’t participate in the day-to-day business operations of Hyperconnect and will focus on creating new business opportunities with in-house or external teams, Ahn said in his LinkedIn post on Wednesday.

Ahn said he will resign from the Hyperconnect CEO position on October 1 of this year. He will remain as chairman and continue to help the company’s senior leadership team, Ahn added.

He co-founded Hyperconnect with two Korean engineers in 2014 and launched livestreaming and chat apps Azar and Hakuna, based on one of the world's first mobile versions of real-time video communication technology dubbed WebRTC.

Match Group fully acquired the fast-growing app operator for $1.7 billion in June 2021.

Azar has become one of the most popular apps around the globe since the acquisition. It was the second-highest grossing communication app on Google Play last September with $1.5 million in revenue from global users, following social platform Discord with $1.7 million, according to Statista. Most of the app’s revenue comes from overseas, Hyperconnect said.

Linda Kim, chief operating officer of Hyperconnect, will become the new CEO on October 1. She joined the company as COO in 2022 and has overseen all its business operations.

The market cap of Match Group, listed on the Nasdaq, has reached $13 billion based on its July 11 share price.

Write to Jeong-Cheol Bae at bjc@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.