Happn

Last year’s infamous Ashley Madison hack revealed a statistic that seemed to confirm what many already feared about online dating. The site’s database included over 31 million male users and just 5.5 million female users. Of those profiles, only a small percentage were real and active: around 20 million men and 2,500 women.

You don’t need to be a mathematician to know those numbers are bad.

The vast majority of Ashley Madison’s female users were inactive or, worse, not real to begin with. Since then, singles have become even more skeptical of the veracity of women’s profiles on dating sites. SurveyMonkey Intelligence recently put those suspicions to the test by studying which dating apps have the highest proportion of women.

The bottom of the bunch is no surprise: Grindr, an app geared towards gay and bisexual men. Some of the entries farther up on the list are equally unsurprising. Coffee Meets Bagel and Bumble, both female-friendly apps, scored relatively high. Tinder and PlentyOfFish found themselves in the middle of the pack, despite having more users than any of the other apps tested.

But the number one spot is where things get interesting. Topping the list, with a userbase that’s 58.6% female, is Christian Mingle. Christian Mingle, Coffee Meets Bagel, and eHarmony are the only apps that have a majority of female users. Who would have guessed that a niche, faith-focused dating app would rank so highly?

SurveyMonkey Intelligence also found that men and women use dating apps differently. Looking at what percentage of users engage with an app on a daily basis, the results are almost flipped. Grindr is the clear leader, with 70.3% of users engaged each day. Christian Mingle and eHarmony bring up the rear with 33.7% and 28.7%, respectively.

It could be that men are generally more engaged daters than women or, as SurveyMonkey Intelligence speculates, it could down to Grindr’s demographic. Because the app is geared towards a targeted market, Grindr users may stick to one app while other demographics spread their efforts among multiple services.

SurveyMonkey Intelligence tested a variety of other factors (read the full report here) and closed with a few tips. “Straight men may want to check out Coffee Meets Bagel, while straight women can confidently choose between a number of apps where the gender ratio is favorable,” the report advises.

It’s also important to take your dating style into account. If you’re the spontaneous type who wants dating to be part of your daily life, SurveyMonkey suggests trying your luck with the highly-engaged users of Happn. If, on the other hand, you take a more relaxed approach, the more infrequent users of Coffee Meets Bagel could be more your speed.

Happn, a France-based dating app that uses geolocation to connect singles who cross paths in everyday life, has reached a major milestone: 10 million members.

The app works much like Tinder, but on a hyperlocal scale. When you walk by another user, their profile is added to the top of your feed. Every potential match you see was near you at some point during the day. The more you scroll, the further back in time you go. Tap a heart to like the profiles that catch your eye and dismiss the rest by tapping a cross. If there's a mutual match, you can start chatting for free.

“When we launched Happn in 2014, we aimed to fill a void in the online dating scene by offering a way for people to connect with those they’ve crossed paths with in real-life – and really, a way to put the spontaneity back into dating,” said co-founder and CEO Didier Rappaport, in a statement.

The strategy seems to be working. Happn is reportedly on track to reach 30 million users by the end of the year.

Millions of happy daters aren't the only big news for the app. Happn has also announced a new voice feature that will allow users to send audio recordings up to one minute long to each other. Happn hopes that the clips will make it easier for users to showcase their unique personalities before meeting up.

Rappaport said in a statement: "This new voice feature provides our members with another opportunity to connect on a more personal level and create meaningful relationships."

To use the new feature, click the mic icon that now appears inside a conversation chain. Hold the button down while recording and release it to finish. When it's complete, you can either send the message or cancel it. On the receiving end, a user simply needs to click on a recording to listen to it. The feature has already rolled out to all iOS and Android users.

Rappaport told Business Insider last November that a number of new features are planned for Happn in hopes of catching up with rival Tinder. "For us, the evolution of our product is really important," he said. "We want to make a service that is more and more rich for our users and one that allows them to express themselves much more."

"The voice is something that is very emotional," he continued. "Just listening to the voice of someone else can give you a lot of impression."

As for what else the future holds for Happn, we'll have to wait and see.

When it comes to mobile dating, every company has just one goal right now: beat Tinder. The latest app to attempt the feat is Happn, a new mobile dating service from Fabien Cohen, Didier Rappaport, and Antony Cohen.

Like most mobile dating apps, Happn uses your phone's location to show you potential matches. Every time you cross someone's path, that person’s profile is added to the top of your feed. It works much like the app Highlight, but for your love life. The goal is to save the world from missed connections, augment coincidence, and boost luck. That cutie you keep running into in your local coffee shop but never say hi to? Happn is where you connect.

When you open the app, you're presented with the grid view of all your latest encounters. Scroll down if you want to go further back in time. Tap a profile to access all the normal features you expect from a dating app. Indicate that you like someone in order to discover if there is mutual interest, then begin a conversation. Note that, unlike Tinder, users can chat with anyone using credits, even if there is no match.

“The app tells you the story of your life through your movements,” co-founder, CEO, and former Dailymotion COO Didier Rappaport told TechCrunch. “The newsfeed personalization is really important. It’s based on real life and this is key. It could be people you’ve crossed paths with and that you really wanted to see on Happn, it could also be someone you came across 44 times because you live in the same area.”

The company is still relatively small, but last year French VC firm Alven Capital invested a significant amount of money in a seed round. Happn is now available in three countries and is gaining traction. Since its official launch in March 2014, around 200,000 people have installed the app. Happn has 40,000 daily active users in Paris, 10,000 daily active users in London, and in Berlin, after only one month, between 7000 and 10,000 daily active users.

The numbers are small compared to the massive competition Happn faces, but they’re strong for a company in such early stages. And now that its user base is building, Happn stands to hit it big. The company plans to launch its app in every major European city over the course of the next eight months, and maybe even in a big city outside Europe.