Ripple, A Tinder Spinoff Backed By Match, Is A New App For Professional Networking
Posted on January 9, 2018
TECH CRUNCH – Jan 9 – A team of former Tinder employees, led by Tinder's original CTO Ryan Ogle, are launching a new app aimed at professional networking. The app, called Ripple, aims to be a mobile-first alternative to LinkedIn. Ripple isn't just a "Tinder for business networking." Rather it takes some of the psychological principles that helped Tinder become a top app in its own market. "It isn't as easy as just throwing profiles up on a screen," Ogle says of competing apps that have tried to enter the business networking space in the past. Tinder addressed the stress that comes with being either the pursued or the pursuer. It only connects you when a match is mutually agreed upon, and it doesn't show you a history of your past "likes." With Ripple, the goal is to take a similar problem-solving approach to business networking's challenges, which differ from those in the dating world. Ripple got its start as an internal Tinder hackathon project. But instead of introducing business networking as a Tinder feature (as Bumble has now done), the company realized it deserved to be its own app. Match Group now has an undisclosed, minority stake in the new app. The company has no other outside investment, though the founders have put some of their own money in.
