With two months until Valentine’s Day, investors worldwide are singling out a variety of online dating and matchmaking startups that believe tech is the solution to improving our love lives.
The $12M Series A announced yesterday for matchmaking app Hinge is the 4th largest round recorded to date for a dating-related startup, beat out only by rounds for Skout, Zoosk, and HowAboutWe.
Hinge wasn’t the only dating tech startup to announce new funding yesterday — Paris-based Happn got $8 million for its location-based mobile dating app.
In the past year, we’ve seen over $40 million invested in dating tech across 38 venture rounds. And this doesn’t account for the over 500 Online Dating startups in CrunchBase, most of which have yet to raise any venture money.
When it comes to matchmaking tech, it seems there’s an option for everyone.
Want to meet somebody nearby? New York-based MeetMoi can arrange that for you. Can’t wait ’til tomorrow? Whim will get you out on the town tonight.
For the career-minded folks, Singld Out will connect daters to professionals via LinkedIn. But that’s not the only dating preference that VCs think deserves some specific attention. Music lovers, sports aficionados, and family-focused singles are by no means left out when it comes to the dating tech market.
In the past four years, U.S.-based dating startups have raised more than half of the worldwide total, with $126 million in capital committed across 71 rounds. New York and Brooklyn saw the majority of this money, with a combined $67 million raised across 22 rounds, while San Francisco dating tech startups raised a total of $50 million in 14 deals.
But dating tech seems to be catching on internationally, with 12 London-based startups, 7 out of Paris, 6 in Moscow, and 5 in Berlin funded in the same time span.
Are investors losing their minds or is this the future of relationships?
Join the conversation at #CBDaily.
Image via Flickr user Don Hankins.
