Debra Borchardt
GRINDR veteran and former Head of Global Sales Steve Levin is joining cannabis dating site High There! as its Chief Revenue Officer. GRINDR is a well-known dating app in the gay community and Levin helped increase the annual ad revenue from $250,000 to $16 million.
” Bringing Steve on is the logical next step in the progression of High There! Says Darren Roberts CEO of High There! “We’ve been successful over the past 2.5 years in scaling a mainstream social network for the cannabis community. Now with the onboarding of Steve as our CRO, who has a track record of building a revenue stream for another niche dating app, we will begin connecting both mainstream and Cannabis advertisers to this powerful group of consumers.”
Hi There! Was created in 2015 with the idea to connect the cannabis community, although it’s slang name is “Tinder for stoners.” It promotes itself as more than a dating website and sees the site as a way to connect cannabis users in a judgement-free space. The site claims to have millions of interactions taking place each month on the app which is available for download on iPhone or Android. The company has been actively beefing up its roster and recently added Cy Scott, the founder of Headset and Leafly to its Board of Directors, along with Ed Sullivan who has experience raising money for tech companies. Sullivan has raised over $70M in private equity and created $700M in exits for investors and shareholders.
“After spending six year helping GRINDR create a successful monetization program and growing ad revenue for the company, I am delighted to be bringing my experiences to another dating/social connectivity app like High There!” says Levin. “Like GRINDR, High There! brings together a powerful community and helps create a mainstream face for it. The potential for growth in the Cannabis industry is boundless, and mirrors the potential I saw when I joined GRINDR. I could not be more excited for the future of this company and its continued growth as part of the High There! team.”
“We are very excited to welcome Steve to our team,” said Roberts. “Since our launch we have been gratified to see High There! bring so many people together, and create meaningful relationships using our technology. With the addition of Steve to High There! we will be enhancing the user experience by connecting the cannabis community to each other, the brands they love, as well as helping them discover new products and services.”
