How dating apps are changing in the wake of swiping fatigue and new startups emerging
New dating app Friend of a Friend plastered ads around New York City this summer.
Dating apps are in for a shake-up.
Many users are tired of swiping, dating app giants like Match Group (which owns Tinder and Hinge) face headwinds, and new startups are launching left and right.
B-17 has interviewed several founders jumping into the dating-app arena as incumbents lose their luster.
Read: Meet the founders behind 11 dating startups
The new crop of dating apps is tackling various pain points in the online dating experience.
Some, for instance, are experimenting with new ways to discover and meet singles (aka not swiping). That includes startups offering users only a small batch of profiles to review each day, such as the New York-based app Pique Dating.
Others are testing how to successfully incorporate artificial intelligence into dating, like Sitch, which offers a chatbot and matchmaking feature powered by AI.
Matchmaking, whether through AI or by friends and family, has also become one of the hottest buzzwords in the dating-startup world.
There’s also a wave of IRL-focused startups that forgo the experience of a dating app entirely with in-person events bringing singles together.
Meanwhile, social startups that aren’t branded around dating — like Posh, 222, and Pie — are also breeding grounds for new friendships in person that could lead to love down the line as young adults seek to meet people in more organic settings. (Several of these IRL-social startups have also raised venture-capital funding this year.)
Even Big Tech is getting in on the action, with Facebook continuing to expand its Facebook Dating feature and Instagram’s long-standing role as a digital flirting mechanism.
