Wu Zunyou, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention's AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases center, praised the app for its usefulness in conveying information to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, community. In 2012, he was invited to meet with now-Premier Li Keqiang because of his AIDS prevention work.
In a country where the government considers any activism dangerous and where homosexuality has traditionally been taboo, Ma has managed to build his business partly by reaching out to government agencies and showing them he can provide a public service in spreading safe-sex messages. He is also considering launching a dating app for lesbians. Ma hopes to use the money to expand abroad and possibly prepare for an IPO. His has spawned a Chinese-language dating app for men called Blued that has garnered 15 million users, 3 million of them outside China, over two years.Īnd last month, his company, Blue City, received $30 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture capital company DCM Ventures. Ma chose his website, a move that later proved fruitful.
After several years, the police force found out and told him he could not run a private website that was earning money from advertisements while serving as a police officer.
