Online Dating 2.0 is Coming and Will Change Everything
How a number of startups are reinventing the world of dating apps
The pandemic has impacted all areas of our life. The way we work, travel, commute, interact and last but not least date.
Lockdowns, social distancing and self-isolation have made online dating even more frustrating than it used to be. Awkward first dates with strangers became even more awkward mobile virtual dates.
Ghosting did not seem that bad anymore or at least not as bad as catching Covid from the guy that after half an hour into the date told you that the Corona Virus was created by Bill Gates into a Lab to control humankind.
As the Pandemic is coming to an end at least in the western part of the world, singles are coming out of hibernation, keen to meet their soulmates (because for the next pandemic ain't gonna spent lockdown with my guinea pig) or just to have some fun.
On the other side, young startups are planning to reinvent the world of online dating with better and more engaging products and less time wasted meaninglessly scrolling — BUILD BACK BETTER
Further, although there has been a proliferation of dating apps in the last few years, many have struggled to attract significant investment. These new startups are trying to disrupt and regain investors’ trust.
In this article, I will go through my favourite companies that are developing some great products to disrupt the evergreen space of intimate relationships.
Thursday
The key concept of this app is that there is more to dating apps and you should not spend your week scrolling.
This app works only one day a week.
On Thursdays, the app comes to life and shows you the users that are around and that more importantly are free and want to meet the same day. So you don't have to spend hours and hours scrolling and planning for a date that is never going to happen. Cut the crap, meet and go from there.
Further, the company organises events where you can meet singles. The company is also partnering with cool companies like Uber and Brewdog (the latter not as cool anymore but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt hoping things will be better going forward).
The app has already 100,000 members and is currently available for singles in London and New York.
The company has recently received a seed investment of over 2million pounds. The money will be used to continue the growth of the platform, attract users and expand in additional cities around the world.
Smitten
After having developed an app to avoid dating your cousins, Iceland tries to disrupt the online dating space again with an app that focuses on the younger generation.
Smitten, combines online dating with entertainment by adding to the experience some features that are not present on the more traditional dating apps.
For example, before deciding whether to swipe right on a profile, users can play the “Guessary Game” where they are asked a number of questions to understand more about the other side’s personality. The result of the questionnaire is posted in the chat as an icebreaker.
Further, people can make their profiles more informative by including fun facts, and interesting stories.
The Iceland based company has recently raised a $2.7m seed round to speed up growth and marketing efforts.
SoSyncd
The London based dating app, developed by two sisters is the last but definitely not the least of my favourite innovating dating apps.
These two entrepreneurs are on the mission to help us find love faster by facilitating connections between people with compatible personality types. In other words, they hope to create long-lasting relationships by connecting people that:
“have the right amount of similarities to understand each other and just the right amount of differences to create that spark”
In practice, the company allows you to take a free personality test that lasts around 5 minutes and provides you with instant results.
Matches are then created based on personality compatibility and the app shows you the users you are most likely to connect to. Then, similar to the more traditional apps you can ‘like’ or ‘pass’ on each profile.
The website is full of success stories so sound that their approach is successful! The investors clearly believe it is as the two entrepreneurs have recently raised 1 million dollars in seed funding to expand in the US.
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