Category: Shaadi

Local Indian Dating Sites Focus on Serious Relationships to Take on Tinder

Posted on February 11, 2019

Indian dating appsTIMES OF INDIA – TrulyMadly is one of the bigger and older local ventures in India. Co-founder & COO Snehil Khanor says the company caters to both casual and serious users, "but there's definitely more money in older cohorts." He says 80% of its paying users mention on their profile that they are looking for something serious. 50% of TrulyMadly users are 28+ years old, and 70% 26+. Sumesh Menon, co-founder and CEO of matchmaking app Woo, also says money flows in only from older users, who are both socially and financially dependent. BetterHalf.AI too pitches itself as a "serious matchmaking product for working professionals looking to get married in the next 1-2 years." Co-founder and CEO Pawan Gupta says matrimony sites are too overwhelming for today's generation. Matrimony, Shaadi and others that traditionally relied on revenue from parents, are transforming to attract singles while keeping parents still involved in the process. Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO of Matrimony.com, says till the mid-2000s, parents registered on behalf of their daughters and sons. Not any more. "Today, ~60% of our 3.7M active members are individuals who register on their own." Investments in the segment have been small, and was at its peak in 2015 at $6.3M. That was the year when TrulyMadly raised $5.3M and iCrushiFlush raised $0.5M. Last year there was just one funding deal. According to comScore data, the number of unique visitors to Tinder in India had risen to as high as that of Shaadi in late 2017, and had continued to challenge the local players.

by Sindhu Hariharan
See full article at Times of India

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How Shaadi.com Uses Technology to Find the Perfect Match

Posted on January 22, 2019

Shaadi ajay poddarETCIO.COM – Jan 21 – Ajay Poddar, VP-Engineering, Shaadi.com shares how the online matchmaking company uses technology to bring people together. When it comes to the matchmaking, first impressions matter. The company maintains a team that reviews photos to ensure they are appropriate. Using Amazon Rekognition, Shaadi has reduced the photo screening time by 95%. The profile-matching process is computationally intensive and algorithm-based. They decided to migrate to AWS in order to improve agility and reduce infrastructure management complexity. Today, ~60% of Shaadi's cost on the web servers got saved by moving to Amazon EC2 Spot. With AWS they have doubled the number of matchmaking algorithms that could be tested simultaneously. "Prior to using AWS we could run less than 2 AB test at any given time, however now we run 6-8, and that can even go up to 10-12 as AWS allows us to scale", Mr Poddar said.

by Sneha Jha
See full article at ETCio.com

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US Dating Apps Woo Indian Market

Posted on December 30, 2018

India datingFINANCIAL TIMES – Dec 30 – Bumble launched in India earlier this month, with the high-profile backing of Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra. At the same time, Tinder has rolled out new features designed to cement its foothold in the country, where it has been operating since 2015. Happn, which matches app users who have crossed paths in real life, has become one of the most downloaded dating apps since coming to India last year. Yet the companies may find Indians difficult to woo. Homegrown matchmaking services with names such as Shaadi.com and Mumbai-listed Matrimony.com, which went public last year in a $78M listing, flourished in India since long before smartphones. According to Matrimony.com almost nine in 10 marriages in India are arranged. But Matrimony.com's share price has fallen 45% over the past year, and profits in the most-recent quarter fell 30% YOY to $1.9M. The foreign apps have yet to prove that the Indian market can be lucrative. Whitney Wolfe, Bumble's CEO and founder, said: "We're entering with purpose, with mission, with a really nuanced, customised product." Far more men in India use dating apps than women, who often stay away due to safety concerns and stigma. ~85% of Happn's users in India are men. But Bumble argues its women-first brand and safety features mean it is best placed to attract female users. In September, Tinder introduced a tool that also gave Indian women the prerogative to initiate a conversation with a match.

by Benjamin Parkin
See full article at Financial Times

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People Group’s Anupam Mittal Leads Funding Round In Shared Space Firm myHQ

Posted on July 30, 2018

Myhq logoVCCIRCLE – July 27 – Delhi-based co-working space startup myHQ, run by JustWork Technologies Pvt. Ltd, has raised $500K (Rs 3.4 crore) in a new round of funding, a company statement said. The round was led by Anupam Mittal, founder of People Group, which runs online matrimony site Shaadi.com. The round also saw participation from Sachin Bhatia, co-founder of dating app TrulyMadly. The startup will use the funds to expand its operations to over 200 spaces across three cities.

by Dearton Thomas Hector
See full article at VCCircle

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Indian Dating Site, Shaadi, Is Adding Aadhaar Verification Tool

Posted on May 18, 2018

Aadhaar_LogoFORBES INDIA – May 17 – Matchmaking sites such as Shaadi.com are using Aadhaar's unique identification number for profile verification. Shaadi added Aadhaar to its profile verification as a result of a recent survey: ~91% of women gave high importance to verified profiles.

by Rajiv Singh
See full article at Forbes India

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NYTimes Q&A With Some Of The Leading Dating Sites/Apps

Posted on April 11, 2018

Online dating 22NEW YORK TIMES – Apr 11 – NY Times interviewed Jerry Miller, the founder of FarmersOnly.com, a website that is not just for farmers, but those who understand "country living"; Meredith Davis, head of communications at The League; Gourav Rakshit, the CEO of Shaadi.com, which targets people with a South Asian background who are interested in marriage; and Helen Fisher, the chief science adviser for Match.com. Read the full interviews here.

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BharatMatrimony Buys SecondShaadi.com

Posted on March 1, 2018

BharatMatrimony SeconShaadi logosVCCRICLE – Mar 1 – Matrimony.com, which owns BharatMatrimony, has acquired SecondShaadi.com from Accentium Web. Matrimony.com received board approval for the acquisition on Thursday. It did not disclose the value of the deal. "Buying SecondShaadi will help us consolidate our offerings and help divorcees and widowers get wider choices than ever before," Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO of Matrimony.com, said. Like SecondShaadi.com, Matrimony.com also operates a platform for divorcees called DivorceeMatrimony.com. In September 2016, the Bombay High Court had ruled in favour of SecondShaadi.com against a petition filed by People Interactive, which owns rival matrimonial portal Shaadi.com. Shaadi.com wanted Accentium Web Pvt. to stop using the word 'shaadi' in its domain name. However, the court said in its order that the word 'shaadi' is generic, and hence, Shaadi.com cannot stop others from using the word as a prefix or suffix for their portals.

by Keshav Sunkara
See full article at VCCircle

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Matrimony.com: A Market Leader In Online Matchmaking

Posted on December 5, 2017

Matrimonycom logoFORBES INDIA – Nov 30 – Murugavel Janakiraman's Matrimony.com, launched with an initial focus on the Tamil community, is now a market leader in online matchmaking. BharatMatrimony, has 15 language-based domains; there are other properties like EliteMatrimony, AssistedMatrimony and CommunityMatrimony, offering specialised services. According to comScore, matrimony.com is the leader in the online matchmaking service space in India in terms of the average number of website pages viewed by unique visitors. In June 2017, Matrimony.com's online properties clocked 991K unique visitors, while its competitors Shaadi.com and Jeevansathi.com reported 420K and 348K, respectively. In FY17, the company showed a profit of ₹43.78 crore ($6.6M) on a revenue of ₹292.9 crore ($44M). It also reported a ₹18.8 crore ($2.8) in profit for the quarter ended Sep 30 this year. However, it had a negative net worth of ₹26.79 crore ($4M) for having restated its losses for the financial years 2014, 2015 and 2106, which cumulatively amounted to a loss of ₹87 crore ($13M).

by Anshul Dhamija
See full article at Forbes India

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Millenials In India Choose Career Over Marriage: Survey

Posted on November 20, 2017

Shaadi logo aug 16TIMES OF INDIA – Nov 16 – Millenials in India choose career over marriage followed by owning a house, studying abroad and travelling the world, says a survey conducted by matchmaking service Shaadi.com. In terms of singles playing more active role in finding their partners, 69% said they would take the first step to initiate marriage while 31% denied doing so.

See full article at Times of India

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Vlogumentary: Indian Dating And Matrimonials

Posted on October 10, 2017

OPW – Oct 10 – India is changing fast! The tradition of arranged marriages is transitioning to ‘planned marriages’ and dating apps. Earlier this year I traveled to India to capture this snapshot in time and history of the progress of the matrimonial and dating apps industry there. I talked with the CEOs of Matrimony, Shaadi and Woo, and interviewed several diverse and fascinating users. This ‘vlogumentary’ covers my journey in Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and let me take you to India.

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Post by Mark Brooks @ Courtland Brooks