Location

Bumble is set to debut Bumble Brew in New York City, its first brick and mortar branded cafe for people to meet or network while they eat, drink coffee, or share a bottle of wine.

The dating company had plans to debut its Brew location last year, but it got pushed back due to the pandemic. With Covid numbers dropping as vaccination numbers increase, and with the success of its IPO earlier this year, Bumble is rolling out the red carpet for the café’s debut and adding more items to the menu.

Bumble Brew is a partnership between Pasqual Jones from Delicious Hospitality Group and the dating platform, according to Bloomberg. The restaurant will be located next to Pasqual Jones on Kenmare Street in downtown Manhattan, and has been tweaked since its initial concept from “date-friendly,” shareable foods to a more robust menu, according to the partners.

Dating app Thursday has secured $3.5 million in seed money investment after launching in New York and London in May, according to Tech Crunch.

The dating app’s name comes from the fact that it’s only live once a week – on Thursdays, so users of the app will have to be sure to log on then if they don’t want to wait another week to connect with potential matches. Thursday goes live at 1:00am and closes at midnight each week, when all conversations and matches vanish. So, if you really want to continue with a match you made on the app, you have to commit and make plans quickly. 

The idea seems to be taking off, at least for now. A month and a half after its launch, the company said in a statement that it had 52,000 downloads, 110,000 likes were sent, and also reported 7,500 matches in a single day. The company also received more seed money than it had planned to raise.

Dating app Tinder has partnered with VisitHealth to offer free mental health services to its users in India.

Through July, all existing and new Tinder members in India will have free access to emotional wellness content through the dating app, such as guided meditations and fitness videos among other health initiatives, according to The Times of India.

In addition, every Tinder member will have access to two free sessions with a licensed therapist across all major Indian languages. Participating members can also have access to continued support at discounted rates after those first two sessions.

The pandemic has been difficult mentally and emotionally for people around the world, and young people looking for connection have been especially vulnerable. More than half of India’s Tinder members are 18 to 25-year-olds, and as The Times of India points out, they have become more open in sharing their lives with others over the app in order to feel more connected - including who they are, how they look, and how they feel. Since the start of the pandemic, Tinder noted that mentions of the word “anxious” grew by 20 percent, and the word “normalize” was used 11 times more frequently in bios from March 2020 until now.

Dating app OkCupid is offering more ways for LGBTQ+ users to identify themselves, and is rolling out the expanded offerings during Pride month.

OkCupid announced the move in a blog post, letting users know that by the end of June, there will be a dedicated space where LGBTQ+ users can choose from a list of over 60 identities to let other members know who they are and how they identify.

In addition to sharing their identities, users can also filter for the types of people or relationships they prefer, giving them more flexibility in their searches.

Image: okcupid

Dating apps OkCupid and Tinder are reaching out to users in India to encourage them to get vaccinated, including offering in-app educational guides and access to an all-new vaccine center.

Tinder users in India will now be able to add their vaccination status to their profiles, as well as being able to encourage others to get vaccinated, according to a report from Indian Express. The stickers range from declaring your own status as “Vaccinated” to “Vaxing soon” to encouraging others to get vaccinated with “Immunity Together” and “Vaccines Save Lives.”

OkCupid is offering similar badges for those who want to declare their vaccination status. The company expects displaying these badges will increase match rates 35 percent, an extra incentive for its users to get vaccinated. The companies have already rolled out vaccination badges in the U.S. and the U.K.

As Pride Month is celebrated around the world, a report surfaced that 27 LGBTQ+ dating apps were removed from Apple’s app store in China. Notably, these apps did not include China-based gay dating app Blued, Grindr, or Scruff, popular gay dating apps in the country.

According to The Daily Mail, digital rights advocacy groups Fight for the Future and China-based GreatFire published a report that claims Apple is “actively helping governments around the world isolate, silence and oppress people.” All together, the report shows 1,377 documented cases of restrictions on access to apps in 152 app stores around the world. The app store in China is second only to Saudi Arabia’s in terms of app removals.