OZY.COM - July 31 - A new wave of dating apps is emerging, focused on people on the autism spectrum. One of them is Aspie Singles. The app claims 4,500 users with 15-20 new sign-ups per day. The CDC estimates that ~1% of the world’s population is on the autism spectrum, meaning ~70M people. Standard dating apps like Tinder are open to people with autism, but are designed for those who are neurotypical. Hiki, launched in 2019, is another dating app targeting people on the spectrum. Founded by entrepreneur Jamil Karriem, the app has 9K users. Uneepi, an app launched in 2016, has coaches who help people with autism pick up on social cues and learn to communicate their emotions and desires effectively. It has 3,500 users.
Aspie Singles Targets Singles on the Spectrum
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German Dating App, LemonSwan, Raised a 7-Digit Round
GRUENDER - July 29 - There are currently ~17M single people in Germany. The online dating revenue in the country will be reach ~212M euros in 2020. The market is dominated by large providers such as Parship or Elitepartner, who aggressively advertise on TV and at S-Bahn stations. So are the large pieces of the cake already distributed? Arne Kahlke and Paul Uhlig don't believe that. The two are founders of dating app Lemon Swan. The app, which claims 250K users, launched 3 years ago. Kahlke has a lot of experience in connecting people. He not only built up Parship's marketing, but also founded ElitePartner in 2004 and sold the company to ProSiebenSat1. Lemon Swan's matching process is similar to that of ElitePartner and Parship - the app works with a psychological personality test and a matching algorithm - but so-called bouncers are also used to check users identity. After a capital injection in January 2019, the start-up has now received fresh capital in the seven-figure range. With the money, LemonSwan wants to become profitable in the German-speaking region in the Q1 2021, and to expand internationally.
by Marie-Charlotte Maas
See full article at Gruender
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com
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91M People Tap This Dating App of Destiny
OZY.COM - July 29 - Dating app Happn uses geolocation tools to recreate chance encounters, and now has 91M users in 17 countries. Founder Didier Rappaport foresees a new phase of AI-influenced online dating, but with real-life magic added in. "Romance is about coincidence," says Happn founder Didier Rappaport. "One day you're in front of someone that will become your one." The app launched in 2014, and over time introduced new ways to connect online, like CrushTime, a game where users can see four nearby profiles and guess which one has liked their photo in order to match with them.
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Tinder's New CEO Catch Drives Match Group to Peak Price
INVESTING - July 29 - Shares of Match Group jumped Tuesday after the announcement that Jim Lanzone was named the CEO. The stock is up ~8% to a record high. Tinder's direct revenue grew 31% YOY, driven by 28% average subscriber growth and 2% growth in average revenue per user in the Q1. Tinder averaged 6M subscribers in the first quarter.
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Israel Researchers Find Hacking Flaws in OkCupid Dating App
TIMES OF ISRAEL - Researchers at cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies have found vulnerabilities on OkCupid that could have given hackers access to sensitive data stored on the app. The researchers said they informed OkCupid about the flaws, which have been fixed. OkCupid said that no users had been impacted by the potential vulnerability, which was fixed within 48 hours of notification.
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Bumble Hits 4 Million Users in India
HINDUSTAN TIMES - July 30 - Bumble reached 2M users last December. Women in India are also sending twice the number of messages on Bumble as compared to users globally. Also, 32% of women users in India use more than one mode on Bumble. In addition to dating, Bumble offers 'BFF' and 'Bizz' modes as well.
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Top Grossing Dating Apps Worldwide for June 2020
SENSORTOWER - July 30 - The top grossing dating app worldwide for June 2020 was Tinder with $64.8M in user spending. ~41% of Tinder's revenue was from the US, followed by 6% from the UK and 6% from Germany. Bumble was the second highest earning dating app worldwide with more $16.5M in gross revenue. ~76% of Bumble's revenue was from the U.S., followed by 7% from the UK. The next top grossing app was Pairs, followed by MeetMe and Tantan.
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Kippo - a Dating App for Gamers
WMMR.COM - July 30 - According to ESA, there are ~164M gamers in the US alone. Kippo is a new dating/social app dedicated to gamers, founded by David Park. One way Kippo is setting itself apart from other apps is a unique "card" system. In the cards, users can list their top ten games, their Myers-Briggs Personality profile, and a multitude of other interests that can get them the most like-minded matches.
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HeyBaby: New Dating App for People Wanting to Start a Family
KTVU - July 30 - Chas McFeely, co-founder of the app "heybaby ," explains why his app is perfect for people who want to have children or who already have kids.
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81% of Daters Would Go on Offline Date, But Video Is Here to Stay
THE MEET GROUP - July 29 - At the start of the pandemic, video was a replacement for real-life interaction. Now, it is a filter to screen potential dates before meeting in person. This shift toward video will extend beyond the pandemic. Tinder has replaced its CEO with a media executive who led CBS's push into streaming video. The Meet Group has been building a livestreaming dating platform for over three years, and today, they are the largest provider of livestreaming dating games in the world. Meet Group's users play 185K dating games a day, up 95% since the declaration of a pandemic in March. The total time spent in video dating increased by 39% to 1.4M hours a day, with each person spending on average ~20 minutes a day. NextDate, the Meet Group's video dating feature, is like speed-dating but with an audience. People queue up to "date" a streamer who has two minutes to choose Next or Date while the audience can comment and rate the contestant. BlindDate adds a twist: it blurs the video image of the contestant, forcing the first impression to be based on personality rather than looks. According to July SurveyGizmo survey of 1500 US residents interested in dating, 81% of daters would be willing to go on an in-person date tomorrow if they met someone interesting on a dating app today. 25% said they had dated in person in the last 30 days.
by Geoff Cook
See full article at Medium
See the top news on The Meet Group
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The Meet Group Launches DateNight to MeetMe and Skout
BUSINESS WIRE - July 28 - The Meet Group, a leading provider of interactive dating solutions, is launching DateNight interactive feature, which makes anyone the star of their own dating game. DateNight is a livestreaming dating game that offers rewards to anyone who plays. Daters who match during a DateNight event will receive a free $10 gift card to one of 18 different national chain restaurants, giving away up to $15K worth of first dates every day. DateNight events will occur on Thursdays from 9:00 - 11:00 p.m. EDT throughout July and August.
See full article at The Meet Group website
See the top news on The Meet Group
See the top news on MeetMe
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Dating Is Costing Brits £1,300 a Year
MARIECLAIRE.CO.UK - July 28 - Looking for love is costing single Brits ~£1,349 a year. Plenty of Fish surveyed 2K single adults and found that on average, they go on thirteen dates a year with each meet-up costing ~£106.06.
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How the Pandemic Has Changed Dating
TODAY - July 28 - Tinder recorded its highest single day of swiping this year, while Bumble hit a milestone of 100M users. Some apps, like Hinge, are integrating new features, like in-app video chatting, to help people connect online. Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and the chief science advisor at Match.com, says that the pandemic has led to a major change on dating apps. "This pandemic has led to more conversations, more meaningful conversations, more self-disclosure, more intimacy (and) less anxiety about sex and money," she said.
by Kerry Breen
See full article at Today
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Study - What Makes Relationships Successful
INVERSE - July 28 - Scientists now argue that there's something far more important than personality when it comes to cultivating happy relationships. The most powerful predictors of relationship quality are the characteristics of the relationship itself. This is according to an analysis of 11,196 couples gleaned from 43 studies. The study as published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This study breaks down all the individual ingredients that go into romantic relationships. They fell into two categories: individual characteristics of each partner (income, age, empathy...) and relationship characteristics (affection, sexual satisfaction...). The dynamic that you build with someone - the shared norms, the in-jokes, the shared experiences - is so much more than the separate individuals who make up that relationship. A partner's personality may only account for ~5% of that relationship satisfaction.
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Tinder Names New CEO
VARIETY - July 28 - Jim Lanzone, former head of CBS Interactive, has been appointed Tinder's new CEO. Lanzone takes over the role from Elie Seidman, who is stepping down. Lanzone starts at Tinder on Aug. 3, reporting to Match Group CEO Shar Dubey. Lanzone had spent nine years at CBS, most recently president and CEO of CBS Interactive. He exited CBS last fall to join venture-capital firm Benchmark Capital as executive-in-residence. Earlier in his career, Lanzone was CEO of Ask.com, which he joined in 2001 after its acquisition of eTour.com, where he was co-founder and president.
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