THERE are no two ways about it: this dating app was built for threesomes.
London-based start-up 3nder — whose name can be pronounced “Thrinder” to rhyme with “Tinder,” according to its founder — has raised $US500,000 ($690,000) in seed capital from a pair of unnamed angel investors,.
Since 3nder’s mid-2014 launch, nearly 1 million users have downloaded the iOS app in search of kinky hook-ups — whether “straight, bisexual, gay, poly- or pansexual,” says founder and CEO Dimo Trifonov.
The growth has spilled into the US, where New York is 3nder’s second-biggest market behind California. Worldwide, users are sending about 1.2 million messages a month on 3nder while logging around 4 million swipes.
That falls sorely short of the 1 billion swipes per day seen on Tinder, the hook-up app whose viral growth is boosting billionaire Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive.
Still, 3nder’s smallish subscriber base is a motivated one that’s willing to pay its monthly fee of nearly $US13. Revenue is up 500 per cent this year, and “it’s all organic, we haven’t done any marketing or advertising,” Mr Trifonov told The Post.
Nearly a third of the accounts created on 3nder are couples, and most are millennials, according to Mr Trifonov.
Indeed, old-school swingers have baulked at 3nder’s Facebook login requirement, which is intended to verify identities.
Despite 3nder’s privacy guarantees, “People were saying, ‘I can’t log in with Facebook — I’m gonna lose my job,’ ” according to Trifonov. “But people between 18 and 34 are not so affected by imaginary moral values.”
The soft-spoken, 25-year-old techie admits his own tastes run vanilla. He got the idea when his longtime girlfriend confessed an attraction to a woman.
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