December 1, 2015
October 18, 2016
After 18 months of bootstrapped success, our online-dating and matchmaking app Cuplin has begun its first round of fundraising on the exclusive seed-funding platform Seerds.com.
Online-dating is a global industry worth +$2bn a year with over half of single people looking for love online, many using more than one service at a time. While online-dating is more popular than ever, the reality is that we are as single today as ever before. Even with all today’s technology, and the promise of sophisticated algorithms that match data profiles, our single friends are still unable to find “the one”.
Last year the team behind Cuplin set out to understand why online-dating is yet to deliver on its promise.
Looking at what makes effective pairings in the real-world, the team found that successful couples are often introduced by people who know them – their friends or work colleagues. Being introduced by a mutual friend means there is a better prospect of having things in common.
So why not use the technology that connects our friends, to help connect our single friends?
Cuplin lets friends play matchmaker for their single friends by drawing potential matches from within 3-degrees of separation on Facebook to connect two single friends. By drawing from interconnected social circles, single people can be introduced safely and are more likely to have common interests and similar demography.
Friends helping friends
Most apps like Tinder or Hinge have the singleton put themselves forward, making it a lonely game at a time when they possibly feel vulnerable. In the real-world people seek the support of their friends and so these friends are very much a part of the dating process. With Cuplin, their friends do it for them. And while singletons can focus on their date, the Cuplin team found that their friends also enjoy living vicariously as a result.
To start on Cuplin, users set simple parameters to define what their single friend might be looking for – gender, age range, and distance from one another. They then review potential matches – other singletons matching these parameters as put forward by their friends from within 3-degrees of separation in Facebook.
In addition to sharing first names and profile pics between the matched-up singles, the app uses Opening Lines to kickstart a romantic connection – single sentences for how a user would introduce their single friend to someone else – as they would in the real-world.
The nuts and digital bolts
Over the last 18 months Cuplin has seen substantial organic growth in Melbourne. The development team has studied the app’s usage and data to garner feedback and learn from users and followers and the app is now on its fifth version. Cuplin has also received extremely positive interest and support in press and on social media, been listed on Krowdster, Product Hunt and featured at events like WebSummit & PauseFest.
Check us out on Seedrs or watch our fundraising video:
