Online Dating

Bumble’s first original series to launch in India, Dating These Nights, was so popular it is back again with a third season.

The teaser for the series includes candid interviews with singles and celebrities about different topics of modern dating that don’t often get discussed openly. The series went live September 2nd on the company’s YouTube channel, and features filmmaker Zoya Akhtar, popular actor Mrunal Thakur, and star of the recently released film Darlings Vijay Varma, among others.

According to ANI Business Wire India, the first episode is entitled “Romances and Bromances” and features a conversation between Akhtar and actor Jim Sarbh to discuss what “healthy masculinity” looks like today.

Filteroff, a new dating app that targets communities of singles, offers virtual speed dating events to set itself apart from traditional swiping apps like Tinder.

The app launched a series of speed dating events specifically for Orthodox Jewish singles starting August 30th, where participants can join from the comfort of their own couches. Each couple is given three minutes to chat over the app, with the option to keep chatting if they connect, or move on to the next.

Other Filteroff virtual speed dating events have been targeted towards vegans, dog lovers, or even Yankee fans, providing services to concentrated communities of singles who have specific needs for matchmaking, according to news site Forward. Events for Jewish singles are meant to compete directly for users of popular Jewish dating app JDate, along with other niche apps.

Dating app BLK, which serves the community of Black daters, announced the launch of “Break the Bank,” a new finance-related campaign initiative.

The campaign promotes “financial literacy” and provides tips to users on how to weather inflation, according to The Drum. It was developed with help from networking collective The Gathering Spot and will be rolled out nationwide in time for Black Business Month. According to BLK, the idea came from the fact that black-owned businesses are particularly vulnerable right now, and are shutting down at twice the average national rate.

The Gathering Spot will send in-app notifications of financial advice to users, with topics like “How Increased Rates will Affect Your Money Flow” and “Tips to Grow Your Small Business to the Next Level.” The app will also be encouraging users to shop at Black-owned businesses with its #BlackSummerSpend campaign on social media channels.

Dating app conglomerate 9Count announced that it has raised another $6 million in VC funding on top of its earlier Series A funding of $21.5 million, bringing total funds raised so far to $27.5 million.

According to Tech Crunch, investors have taken notice of the company’s dating app Summer, a rebranding of former dating app Spark, which has gained traction in a saturated market namely for its appeal to younger daters.

Summer hit number one in the App Store in two markets immediately after its launch and now has more than 500,000 downloads, over a million registered users, and more than 300,000 monthly active users (just a few months later). 9Count CEO Alex Hofman told Tech Crunch that it’s “the fastest-growing dating app to hit the market since Bumble arrived in 2014.”

Founder of Blued - Baoli Ma

Baoli Ma, the founder of BlueCity Holdings which operates Blued, China’s most popular gay dating app, has stepped down from his position as chairman and CEO after the company was privatized and delisted from NASDAQ. The company has not yet named a successor.

According to the South China Morning Post, Ma hinted that it was difficult to run a gay dating platform in the country’s current environment, where the government is cracking down on LGBTQ content online and removing gay dating apps including Grindr from its app stores. Last year, Chinese conglomerate Tencent erased over a dozen LGBTQ university groups from WeChat. Same-sex marriage is currently illegal in China as well.

The country has enforced new rules regarding privacy, data management and algorithmic recommendations for the past few years, which have especially affected gay dating platforms like Blued. But the app has run into controversies on its own, too. In 2019, Blued suspended new user registrations for one week after a report came out that some underage users contracted HIV on dates set up via the app.

The global dating market continues to grow at a faster rate than ever before, with projections of total market value to more than double in the next five years.

A new study by Research and Markets detailing the growth of the online dating market globally had an optimistic outlook despite recent disappointing quarters from top dating platforms Bumble and Match Group. The value of the online dating market in 2021 was valued at $12.37 billion and is expected to grow to $28.36 billion by 2027. The online dating market is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 14.84 percent over the period from 2022 to 2027.

Part of the reason for this growth is the popularity of dating apps, especially in countries with younger, growing populations like India and China. In addition, the proportion of single people has been rising worldwide, according to the study.