Tinder Social Launches As Hookup App’s Answer To Group Hangouts

Tinder wants to help you go out and bring along some friends. The popular dating app is expanding beyond one-to-one matches and looking to connect groups.

A new feature called Tinder Social lets users create a group of people that includes everyone’s pictures and names — pulled from users’ Tinder profiles — as well as a location of where you are interested in going for the get-together.

The app then functions the same as one-to-one matching, where users can swipe and match with other nearby groups that are interested in a night out. Once you’re matched, you can chat with everyone in the group.

“Whether you’re looking for groups you share common interests with, or you’re looking for a completely new adventure, Tinder Social is a better way to go out with friends,” Tinder wrote in a blog post on the update.

Tinder Social is currently available only to a small test group in Australia, where Tinder often tests its new features. But the company plans to release the feature globally soon, according to the blog post.

The move seems to indicate that Tinder, often referred to as a hookup app, is moving beyond dating. Judging from the feature named Tinder Social, the company could be looking to become more of an app that helps create other offline experiences.

“Tinder has always been about making you more social in the real world, not the digital world. So try our new product, get off your phone, meet more people and be more social,” the blog post reads.

Tinder is owned by IAC/InterActive Corp., part of its Match Group portfolio. The app makes more than 26 million matches per day and had made more than 10 billion matches as of November. The app has more than 9.6 million daily active and 583,000 paid members, according to SEC filings from Match Group in November.

Tinder is still growing. The company reported Jan. 3 as the busiest day in its three-year history, with its highest volume of downloads and growth in active users.

Match Group Inc. (MTCH) reports first-quarter earnings on May 3.