Epidemic may Online dating is doomed. Instead, it makes singles prefer swiping cards more than ever. Sanctions on face-to-face gatherings have spurred the adoption of new products such as video dating and persuaded more people to pay for advanced features.All in all, this industry has A sought-after year.

John Madigan, an analyst at IBISWorld, a business research firm, said: “Before Covid-19, the acceptance and standardization of online dating was already underway, but the tailwind from the pandemic accelerated growth.” IBISWorld predicts In the next four years, the value of the global online dating industry will increase from US$5.3 billion to US$6.4 billion.

Where there is money — or at least where there is money — there are also startups. According to data from Crunchbase, in the United States, at least 50 dating companies were established between 2019 and 2021. Although the ratio has not changed much in the past decade, the total amount of funds has increased. These new startups represent some new ideas in the dating field, and hope that the next dating unicorn can appear after a year of isolation.

In most cases, the newer dating apps focus on Gen Z, a demographic that grew up in the post-Tinder era and represents the largest share of the industry’s projected revenue. snack, Which calls itself “TikTok meets Tinder” and invites users to upload short videos for scrolling through potential matches.Also Lollipop, An app that allows you to “match people while exploring sweet video content”. Lolly’s 22-year-old founder Marc Baghadjian (Marc Baghadjian) said that the app’s focus on video provides its users with a better online dating experience. “You can be funny, you can be funny, you can be very talented, you can show all of this in a video, which is something you can never do with your photos.”

feel There is also a short video carousel on personal information, and people should express themselves in more ways. It is advertised as an “anti-dating app” and is suitable for people who think “swiping cards are boring” and that platforms like Tinder are too superficial. Laurent de Tapol, co-founder of Feels, said that since its launch in April, the app has attracted 150,000 users. He also admitted that if these users do not have personal information, most of them will create accounts on mainstream applications such as Tinder and Hinge. But de Tapol hopes that people will be attracted by the experience on Feels, “where they can share more about who they are, what they like, and express their very unique personality.”

Other dating apps avoid the use of images altogether. Lex, A dating app for “queer, transgender, non-gender, two-spirited, and non-binary people”, inspired by people in the newspaper: its profile uses only text. Synchronize, Based in London, matches people based on their Myers-Briggs personality type.

Singles may be ready to accept some new ideas in dating, but these startups will largely compete with each other, rather than with industry giants. A company, Competition group, Supports the largest online dating brands, including Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid and Match; according to a report in October 2020, it accounts for nearly one-third of the market in total report From IBISWorld. eHarmony controls another 12%. The rest is given to about 2,000 dating companies, most of which have “less than 1% market share.” In most cases, the little guys compete with each other and it is almost impossible to replace Match Group as the dominant player.

This is one of the reasons investors are hesitant to fund dating startups. Andrew Chen, partner of Andreessen Horowitz, summarized several others in 2015 Blog post: It is difficult to retain users, there is inherent churn, and profit exit is unusual. 2019 analysis Crunchbase It is found that although many new entrants enter the field of online dating, venture capital has not kept up. Without strong investor support, dating startups will have a harder time competing with larger players.