The co-founders of Tinder and seven current and former executives have filed a lawsuit against the dating app's parent company alleging it undermined the app's valuation to deny them billions of dollars' worth of stock options.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in New York State court, seeks a minimum of $2 billion in damages from IAC/InterActiveCorp and its subsidiary Match Group Inc.
The plaintiffs, who include Tinder co-founders Sean Rad, Justin Mateen and Jonathan Badeen, allege that IAC and Match repeatedly falsified financial information to lowball the app's valuation. That prevented bigger payouts to the co-founders and executives, the suit says.
"Under the contracts between IAC/Match and the employees, the more valuable Tinder becomes, the more IAC/Match is required to pay," the plaintiffs said in a statement.
IAC and Match did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
