Dating Services

The Unicode Consortium, otherwise known as the gatekeeper of emojis, has introduced interracial couple emojis to their growing lexicon of inclusive choices. The new emojis will debut later in 2019, in large part thanks to dating app Tinder.

According to Mashable, when the new emojis debut, you can choose from a mix of different skin color and gender combinations, including interracial same-sex couples, depending on your preference. The combinations provide a total of 71 new couple variations. Until now, the only couple or group emojis available has been the default yellow emojis.

Tinder advocated for interracial couple emojis back in early 2018 with its #representlove campaign. The company had already made efforts to be more inclusive by offering a range of gender and sexuality preferences people could include in their dating profiles, so the emoji campaign was another way to advocate for and appeal to its userbase. Tinder introduced a petition to Unicode after gathering 50,000 signatures, making a case to add the new emojis.

Not content with being one of the most well-known names in the dating space - as well as a facilitator for friendships and a growing power in the world of business networking - Bumble has set its sights on conquering the entertainment industry.

The company recently announced the return of the Female Film Force, a UK-based initiative launched last year to fund short films from aspiring women filmmakers in the UK and Ireland. The inaugural 2018 competition yielded 1,100 pitches and awarded five filmmakers (writer, directors or producers) £20,000 each to make a film embodying Bumble’s values of female empowerment, equality and kindness.

Popular dating app Bumble has launched a new filtering tool for its career networking app Bumble Bizz, which allows users to exclude men from their searches.

The new tool is a filter that can be turned on or off in the app settings. When it is activated, the filter excludes men from searches. The reason for the new tool is to help women find opportunities in careers where they’ve been traditionally underrepresented, such as the tech industry.

The idea is to help women build a strong network of contacts to support their career growth and shrink the gender gap. Bumble Bizz is often used by employers to find new hires, as well as job seekers looking for something new. This could give women more visibility in industries where they’ve traditionally been overlooked.

Tinder isn’t shying away from its reputation as a hookup app - in fact, it’s leaning in.

Last year, the company launched an unapologetic ad campaign celebrating single culture with taglines including ‘Single Does What Single Wants,’ ‘Single Never Has To Go Home Early,’ and ‘Single Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.’ For Valentine’s Day 2019, the company collaborated with Homesick Candles to release a candle named “Single, Not Sorry” for Singles’ Awareness Day. Now, with college students across America eagerly awaiting their next vacation, Tinder has announced a ‘Spring Break’ mode.

Online dating is a fast-growing trend thanks to apps like Tinder. But does our ease with swiping, messaging, and moving on have further implications in our culture, including changing the way we interact with one another?

According to website Mashable, studies on dating app behavior point to a distressing trend. On the one hand, online dating has helped to bridge people from different social circles who used to rely on friends and work colleagues to introduce them to future love interests. Now, we can login to a dating app and start swiping.

However, it’s become so easy to swipe that dating apps have become a game more than a way to connect. You see how many people you can match with by endlessly swiping right. You meet someone for drinks to see if they look as hot in person, but if you’re not blown away with chemistry, you can easily move on. There’s no effort needed, and this is becoming a problem for people who are looking for more serious relationships.

The dating industry remains a firm favorite for entrepreneurs who dream of founding the next breakout startup. But for many big-time investors, new dating platforms are risky ventures in a crowded market that may not be worth betting on. In honor of Valentine’s Day, Crunchbase News took a look at the relationship between startups, investors and the pursuit of finding a mate. Their status? It’s complicated.

Online dating has proved it can be an enormously profitable industry, yet despite producing impressive numbers, it often struggles to lure venture funding. “In 2018,” writes Joanna Glasner, “venture investors put $127 million globally into 27 startups categorized by Crunchbase as dating-focused. While that’s not chump change, it’s certainly tiny compared to the more than $300 billion in global venture investment across all sectors last year.”

Global venture investment in dating startups currently leans heavily toward companies based in China. Blued, a China-based dating app for gay men, received nearly 80 percent of dating-related capital in 2018. In 2017, Chinese mobile dating app Tantan received the bulk of dating investment. In 2014, Beijing-based matchmaking site Baihe raised a staggering $250 million.