Tea's investigation of the incident found that app users' direct messages had been breached, along with some of their photos. "Out of an abundance of caution, we have taken the affected system offline," San Francisco-based Tea said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.

Cook partnered with an influencer and podcaster named Daniella Szetela, who later became its head of socials, to design and launch the platform. On Tea, women can vet potential suitors using technology like reverse-image searching, entering in their phone number to check for “possible marriages,” and background checks.