BBC – Mar 25 – Shahzad Younas is the founder and CEO of Muslim dating site and app Muzmatch. Two years ago, Shahzad was in San Fran pitching Muzmatch at a global competition to win backing from prestigious Silicon Valley investment firm Y Combinator. He opened his address to the room by saying: "Muslims don't date, we marry." Y Combinator offers financial and practical support to a number of new start-ups per year. ~13K applied at the same time as Muzmatch, and it was one of 800 whose founders were invited to pitch in person. Muzmatch was given $1.5M (£1.2M), one of 100 start-ups that got backing in 2017. Today the fast-growing company says it currently has ~1M registered users across the UK and other countries. With a second office in Bangladesh, Muzmatch operates a "freemium" business model. It is free to use its basic service, but users can pay ~£10 a month for extra features such as unlimited viewing of profiles, and having their profile seen by more people. The company says its annual turnover is now~£4.5M.
by Sarah Finley
See full article at BBC
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