TECH CRUNCH – Heart to Heart has raised the pre-seed round of $750K. "The main thing we are trying to accomplish with the $750K is to focus on building our iOS app, and making LA our first launch market," says CEO Joshua Ogundu. "Dating is such a local experience, and it makes sense to us to build and improve locally, then scaling it up from there."
by Haje Jan Kamps
See full article at Tech Crunch
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TECH IN ASIA – Fika was founded in 2020 by Denise Sandquist and Oscar Xing Luo who have professional backgrounds in finance and AI. It focuses on improving women's experiences in meeting people online. After signing up, all users must pass a verification check. Once they're in, users can look through AI-suggested matches based on their interests. Fika will use the new funds to expand its team, improve its AI, and grow its user base in Vietnam. The app is tailored to Vietnam, where it has 750K downloads and 40% of its users are women.
by Roehl Niño Bautista
See full article at Tech in Asia
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AUSTIN BUSINESS JOURNAL – Austin-based dating app Swoovy has raised $1.2M seed round. Swoovy, co-founded by Brooke Waupsh and Jeff McMahon in 2018, is turning dates into volunteer opportunities. Like Tinder or Bumble, Swoovy matches users who mutually swipe on each other. After matching, the couple can choose a volunteer event with a local nonprofit.
See full article at Austin Business Journal
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EU STARTUPS – Aug 31 – A new dating app Bare has just completed a successful Seedrs campaign, crowdfunding €456K.The app describes itself as providing a safe space with true liberation from judgement that advocates for honesty, whilst experimenting with their romantic and sexual selves. Alex Sergent, CEO and Co-founder of Bare, said: "The Seedrs campaign has proven to us that we are giving the dating industry what it wants." With a voice note feature on matches, a sliding blur bar on photographs, and a community of openness, Bare is unique in its approach. It also offers ID verification on sign up to reduce 'catfishing'.
by Charlotte Tucker
See full article at EU Startups
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UKTTN – Aug 3 – POM, a dating app that matches people based on the user's musical and psychological compatibility, has just bagged £1.5M in a pre-launch angel investment round via undisclosed investors. POM was created by 22-year-old up-and-coming entrepreneur Vihan Patel, who teamed up with his co-founder Vladimir Ignatyev, whom he met at school. The app has 25K members already, and it is currently accepting pre-registrations. The official launch of the POM app in London is slated for August 10. The investment will be used to further develop its emotional algorithm that matches users depending on their music library on Apple Music or Spotify and half a dozen questions.
by Akansha Srivastava
See full article at UKTN
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TECH CRUNCH – June 28 – Thursday, a dating app that only works on Thursdays, has raised a £2.5M (~$3.5M) seed investment, a few months after launching in May in London and New York. Last Thursday (June 17) it says that 110K likes were sent, resulting in 7,500 matches in a single day. The app opens for usage at 00.01 each Thursday morning so swiping is compressed into a few hours. All matches and conversations vanish at midnight. Hence users are pushed to act quickly. Matches are also limited to x10 people a day. The plan for the seed funding includes hiring a head of growth and a head of marketing, in addition to other senior roles and a number of tech hires – and coming up with what they dub as a "six figure marketing strategy".
by Natasha Lomas
See full article at Tech Crunch
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SIFTED.EU – June 18 – Smitten, a dating app from Iceland, has raised $2.7M to expand in Europe, and to woo Gen Zers (people born between 1997 and 2015) with a dating app that mixes gaming, entertainment and flirting. Most Smitten users are 25 or younger, and roughly 20% are 18 years old. The company says it will use the investment to launch in the Nordics in late August or early September. Smitten's round was led by early-stage firm byFounders, with participation from PROfounders, Inventures, Brunnur Ventures, Tiny.vc and several angel investors. As part of the round, wine app Vivino founder Heini Zachariassen and PROfounders's Joe Bond will join the board.
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TIMES OF ISRAEL – June 7 – Rappers take a stake in 'Lox Club,' a Jewish dating app for people 'with ridiculously high standards'. The two rappers have made the $1M investment in partnership with Adam Kluger, an agent for musical artists. Kluger was Bhad Bhabie's manager and partners with Lil Yachty on investments. The dating app has an application process and a membership fee, and members work with a matchmaker.
by Ben Sales
See full article at Times of Israel
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LINKEDIN – June 1 – Bare Dating, a new casual dating app on which users can choose to safely share intimate pictures, is raising funding through Seedr crowdfunding platform. The startup has so far raised close to ~£300K. Bare Dating launched in 2020 and has seen great success with 10K users in the UK.
EU STARTUPS – May 26 – Paired, a leading app to improve romantic relationships, has raised €2.9M in seed funding, bringing the total raised by the company to date ~€3.7M. Paired is a fun, evidence-based app that prompts daily conversations between partners. Since launching in October 2020 it has ~5K paying subscribers, with growing audiences in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada. The investment will accelerate the company’s global growth ambitions and scale up its product development efforts, giving users personalised recommendations based on their relationship interests and needs.
by Charlotte Tucker
See full article at EU Startups
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