Grindr Inc., the LGBTQ dating app, will cover as much as $300,000 in fertility, surrogacy and adoption costs for employees — far more than what the average company offers its workers.
The benefit will be available starting next year to those who have been at the company at least 18 months, and will cover 80% of costs and associated taxes up to the $300,000 cap over five years. Employees will also have access to hormonal health care, including menopause and low testosterone support, through benefit provider Carrot Fertility, according to a company statement.
“We want every person who works at Grindr to have as fair of an opportunity as possible to build a family if they want to do that,” said Chief Executive Officer George Arison in an interview. Arison himself has two children through surrogacy. “This is extremely expensive,” he added. “I know because I’ve gone through it.”
Though companies are increasingly offering family building benefits, very few cover all or nearly all the costs associated with the process. One outlier is chipmaker Nvidia Corp., which in 2021 began offering unlimited reimbursement for adoption and surrogacy.
Many hopeful parents end up with hefty bills when they try to expand their families. One cycle of in vitro fertilization treatments can exceed $30,000, and families often need multiple rounds to end up with a healthy pregnancy. Among companies that cover IVF, more than half have a lifetime benefit maximum, with a median cap of $20,000, according to a recent Mercer survey of employers with at least 500 workers.
Grindr has around 148 employees globally and plans to expand its team through 2025, according to a November regulatory filing. The company will grow headcount in a “moderately paced way” Arison said in the interview, adding that he envisions hiring around 50 people over the next 12 months.
The firm in 2023 lost almost half its workforce after it began enforcing a return-to-office policy. Last month, the US National Labor Relations Board alleged that the company illegally imposed the RTO policy in an attempt to thwart a unionization push. Grindr has denied any wrongdoing. The company has “full faith in our judicial system,” Arison said, declining to comment on the matter further.
