STARTUPTICKER.CH – noii has launched in Germany, starting with its first event in Stuttgart, followed by expansion to Munich and Cologne. Originally launched as a video speed dating platform in 2022, noii shifted fully to offline dating events in 2025 after strong demand for real-life interactions. The model is already working in Switzerland, where noii hosts up to 15 events per month across six cities with ~2K participants.
NL TIMES – Four Fingers Management, a Dutch company, is linked to 1,623 fake dating sites across 32 countries. Users chat with employees posing as fake profiles and are led to believe real meetings are possible, while paying per message. In 2018, the Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM) raided several fake dating companies and imposed fines. The regulator now calls the findings “very concerning,” but has not said whether it will investigate Four Fingers Management.
PURE – After a US campaign in NYC and LA, the safety-first dating app for Gen Z is launching in Europe. PURE is rolling out a six-week campaign across London and Paris focused on real-world experiences and local activations. Pure closed 2025 with $100M in annual gross revenue, 95% YOY registration growth, and 46% revenue growth. The app now ranks among the top 8 grossing lifestyle apps in the US, the UK, and France. The product positions itself as an alternative to swipe-based apps, focusing on safety, privacy, and more intentional connections, with features like verification tools, disappearing chats, and AI moderation.
RFI – France has signed a charter with major dating apps, including Tinder, Grindr, Bumble, and Happn, to combat rising homophobic ambushes, where victims are lured by fake profiles and attacked. The agreement focuses on three pillars: prevent, report, and protect. Platforms will improve reporting tools, retain and share data with law enforcement (even after account deletion), promote verified profiles, and strengthen bans. France positions this as a first-of-its-kind coordinated effort between government, tech platforms, and advocacy groups to tackle targeted anti-LGBT+ violence.
GRINDR – Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court ruled that same-sex marriages performed in other EU countries must be recognized in Poland, giving legal status to an estimated 30K–40K Polish couples married abroad. The ruling follows advocacy from local organizations, supported by Grindr for Equality through campaigns and partner initiatives. Full marriage equality remains the goal.
BUSINESS RECRUITMENT – Dating app usage in the UK has fallen 16% since 2024 due to app fatigue, but investor interest is shifting toward female-led dating companies, especially matchmaking services. Women run ~90% of personalized agencies and are increasingly entering app leadership roles, focusing on safety, emotional intelligence, and relationship outcomes rather than engagement mechanics. These platforms produce fewer initial meetings than large swipe apps but achieve higher rates of long-term relationships. The UK market has ~1.3M users across ~1,400 services worth £422M and is growing 8% annually, with global dating projected to exceed £13B by 2030. Industry figures argue that the future model combines human matchmaking supported by AI rather than AI-only systems.
THE DRUM – Breeze, a dating app designed to move matches quickly from the screen to an in-person date, is launching in the UK. The launch is promoted with a national campaign created by Cloudfactory that focuses on the moment of agreeing to meet rather than prolonged messaging.
OPW – Ofcom’s new Online Nation report shows UK adults now spend an average of 4 hours 30 minutes online daily, rising to 6 hours 20 minutes for 18–24-year-olds. Women use slightly more apps than men, and nearly half of adult internet users want stronger online safety measures. In dating, 11% of adults, about 5M people, visited a dating site in 2025, with male users increasing by 400K while female usage dipped slightly; time spent per visit also declined. Age-assurance rules had a major impact: VPN use spiked from 650K to 1.4M in August before stabilising, and the top five age-assurance providers saw 7.5M visits in the first four weeks after the Children’s Codes were introduced.
OFCOM – Ofcom is phasing in the UK’s Online Safety Act through 2027, creating a full regulatory system that makes online platforms legally responsible for tackling illegal content, protecting children, improving age-verification, publishing transparency reports, and strengthening terms of service. They’ve already issued key rules on illegal harms and child safety, and the next steps include new guidance for protecting women and girls, requirements for handling data about deceased children, super-complaints, accredited technologies for detecting child sexual abuse and terrorism content, media-literacy standards, and extra duties for major platforms (like controls for fraudulent ads, ID verification, and protections for journalism and democratic content). By 2027, major services will need to comply fully, publish public safety reports, meet stricter enforcement standards, and possibly even face new requirements for app stores and expanded priority offences such as cyberflashing and self-harm encouragement.
See full article at Ofcom website
PYMNTS – Reports of romance fraud in the UK rose 9% in 2024–2025, costing victims ~106M, according to a new review by the Financial Conduct Authority. The FCA said banks, payment firms, and online platforms must step up detection and prevention, as 85% of such scams begin online. It urged greater user education, stronger anti-fraud systems, and closer cooperation between financial and digital platforms to curb losses.
See full article at PYMNTS