dating-app
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OkCupid made dating a question of values
A photograph starts the conversation. OkCupid built a business around what comes next: the beliefs, boundaries, and peculiarities that make two people worth introducing.
Hinge wants you to leave. The business keeps growing.
The dating app rebuilt itself around better dates, then turned that promise into a $691 million annual business. Its next test is making paid visibility, AI assistance and a timely goodbye work together.
Grindr Built the Gay Internet’s Town Square. Now It Wants to Be the Whole Neighborhood.
The yellow grid solved one urgent problem with almost comic efficiency: who is nearby? Seventeen years later, Grindr is betting that the same network can sell convenience, care and community - without burying the thing people came for.
She Watched 'Love on the Spectrum' - Then Built the Dating App the Giants Ignored
Holly Fowler spent two years building Wable at 3am - a dating, friendship and jobs app for neurodivergent people. A A$1.5 million round and a Times Square billboard later, it is live in four countries.
Bumble Is Rebuilding the First Move
The women-centered dating company is shrinking its paying base on purpose, rebuilding its app with AI and betting that fewer bad interactions can lead to more real dates.
Ditto
Ditto is a Berkeley-born AI matchmaker that skips the swiping. Students text their preferences, and every Wednesday Ditto sends one curated match over iMessage - with the time, place, and coffee-date logistics already handled. Founded by UC Berkeley students Allen Wang and Eric Liu, it went viral through sorority group chats, grew to roughly 100,000 users across about ten campuses, and raised a $9.2M seed led by Peak XV. Its bet: dating apps optimize for time-on-app, but people actually want a good date in real life.
Allen Wang
Allen Wang is the cofounder and CEO of Ditto, a swipe-free AI matchmaking service for college campuses that plans real, in-person dates over iMessage. He dropped out of UC Berkeley after starting the company with cofounder Eric Liu - reportedly to help a roommate find a girlfriend before graduation. By early 2026 Ditto had grown to roughly 42,000 students across University of California campuses and raised a $9.2 million seed round led by Peak XV Partners, with Gradient Ventures and others participating, on a bet that Gen Z wants fewer screens and more real dates.
Renate Nyborg
Renate Nyborg is the founder and CEO of Meeno, a generative-AI app teaching people - mostly young men - how to build real relationships, which she frames as a fight against loneliness she rates 'on par with climate change.' She was the first woman to run Tinder and previously led Apple's App Store subscriptions in Europe and built Headspace's first international product and marketing org. Half Norwegian, half Dutch, raised across four countries and fluent in five languages, she studied philosophy at Cambridge in her third language. Meeno has raised about $5 million from Sequoia, Andrew Ng's AI Fund and NEA, and has pivoted from text advice toward voice-based practice scenarios it calls the 'Duolingo of dating.'
Coffee Meets Bagel
Coffee Meets Bagel is a relationship-focused dating app founded by Korean-American sisters Arum, Dawoon, and Soo Kang. Built on the idea that quality beats quantity, it serves curated daily matches rather than infinite swipes - aimed at people who want commitment, not entertainment.
Soo Kang
Soo Kang is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Coffee Meets Bagel, the women-focused dating app she built alongside her sisters Arum and Dawoon. A Korean-American designer by training, Soo immigrated to the US at age 12, studied at Parsons School of Design, and brought creative direction and brand identity to one of the most distinctive dating apps on the market. The company famously turned down a $30 million buyout offer from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank - the largest offer in the show's history at the time - and went on to raise $23.2 million in total funding with $36 million in annual revenue.
Tony Xia
Tony Xia is a computer vision engineer turned venture scout and startup founder who built his technical chops at DJI, AutoX, and Arraiy (acquired by Matterport) before co-founding Crema Social - a video-call-meets-food-delivery international dating platform that amassed over 1 million signups in 8 months. After graduating from a16z speedrun's Cohort 003, he became a Scout for a16z speedrun, backing pre-seed founders with $10K checks and a direct path into one of Silicon Valley's most competitive accelerators.
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Whitney Wolfe Herd co-founded Tinder, sued it for sexual harassment, and turned that lawsuit into Bumble - the dating app where women make the first move. By 31, she became the world's youngest female self-made billionaire and the youngest woman to take a self-founded company public in U.S. history. After stepping down as CEO in 2023 and experiencing what she calls an 'ego death,' she returned to lead Bumble in 2025 with a new vision: rebuilding it as 'The Love Company.'