Grindr Was Founded by Joel Simkhai, an Israeli-American Jew Born in Tel Aviv

Claim: Grindr was founded by Joel Simkhai, an Israeli-American Jew born in Tel Aviv

Verdict: True.

The X post from @5149jamesli (April 10, 2026) asked @grok who founded Grindr and where they are from. Grok’s reply:

“Grindr was founded in 2009 by Joel Simkhai, an Israeli-American tech entrepreneur. He was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1976 and moved to New York City with his family at age 3.”

Grok did not say “Jewish.” That part of the question is still on the record from Simkhai himself.

• Who founded it: Joel Simkhai. Fortune (Aug. 12, 2014) said "In 2009, Simkhai created Grindr," a location-aware app for gay men, and built the company in Los Angeles. Wikipedia's Grindr page lists him as founder and dates the iOS launch to March 25, 2009, in Los Angeles. PinkNews (Feb. 22, 2011) called him "CEO and founder" and said the app became available in March 2009. A Danish developer, Morten Bek Ditlevsen, wrote the first code. A friend, Scott Lewallen, helped with the name and logo (Sydney Morning Herald, July 10, 2010; PinkNews). Those are helpers. The founder credit is Simkhai's. He later sold a majority stake to China's Kunlun Tech in 2016, sold the rest in 2018, and left as CEO.
• Where he was born, and the move at age 3: Fortune opens: "Joel Simkhai was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. He and his family immigrated to New York when he was three." The Independent (July 9, 2014) wrote that after "emigrating with his family to America from Israel, aged three, Simkhai grew up in Mamaroneck." HuffPost (June 23, 2016) said he "was born in Israel but relocated to the U.S. with his family when he was 3." In a Gaingels profile he said, "As an immigrant from Israel, I remember my dad explaining early on..." Fortune also quotes him saying English is his second language after Hebrew.

• 1976: In a December 2010 first-person Queercents interview he wrote:

“I was born in Tel Aviv in 1976, the middle child of three sons. At the age of three, I emigrated from Israel with my family to New York, where I was raised.”

• The New York Times (Dec. 12, 2014) called him "born in Israel in the year of the American bicentennial." Wikipedia's infobox is the same year. PinkNews called him 34 in February 2011, Fortune called him 37 in August 2014, Jewish Journal called him 38 in February 2015. We could not locate a month-and-day birth date.
• Israeli-American: Born in Tel Aviv, raised in New York, later based in Los Angeles. That is origin plus American upbringing, not a current-passport check. We could not locate an Israeli Interior Ministry file. Wikipedia later added French citizenship, citing the Financial Times (Nov. 18, 2022). Grok's "Israeli-American" line does not become false because of a later French naturalization.
• Jewish: Asked how he would feel about Grindr profiles that said "no Jews," he told Patrick Strudwick of The Independent:

“As a Jewish man, I wouldn’t like it, but we encourage users to state it in a positive way: ‘Only looking for Christian guys’, or whatever. I’m not going to solve racism.”

• Tess Cutler's February 11, 2015 Jewish Journal profile says he "said that as a Jew he's a minority already," then quotes him: "we've been fighting for our equality and against persecution for a long, long time." The New York Times (Dec. 12, 2014) described his father as a "Tehran-born Israeli diamond dealer."

In plain language:

Yes. Joel Simkhai founded Grindr in 2009. He has said he was born in Tel Aviv in 1976, moved to New York at age 3, and described himself as a Jew and an immigrant from Israel. We could not locate a birth certificate.