THE NATIONAL NEWS - Feb 10 - Muzmatch, the world's largest Muslim dating app, has gained 1M new users in the previous six months alone, 35% of them of Arab ethnicity. It was founded in 2011 by British-Asian Shahzad Younas as a marriage website for Muslims. The app claims 4M users worldwide and 50 employees. Family pressure is often given by Muslims and Arabs as a factor in deciding to tie the knot. Sherif Omar, the founder of the BuzzArab dating app, says: "There are a lot of negative connotations around online dating. In Arabic you don't even use the word date." BuzzArab has ~400K active users. Most of the users are in Morocco, France, Algeria and Egypt. Muzmatch plans to launch across South-East Asia and the Middle East. After successfully completing a $7M Series A funding round in 2019, Mr Younas has big ambitions for his company. While Mr Omar is not looking for investment, he is considering the scope for growth in the US, Canada and Australia, which are homes to large Arab communities.