When Joseph Feminella met his future wife on Hinge in 2020, he was already tired of traditional dating apps. He told her he would like to meet in person immediately, and they met that same evening.

The couple married three years later and, after a four-year incubation period, Feminella launched his dating app First Round’s on Me nationwide in August. The app is intended to help people meet in real life and was inspired by his own experiences, Feminella said.

The El Segundo-based app skips swiping and encourages users to arrange a time and place for a date. Any user can send a date invitation to another user and the chat will only open 24 hours before the scheduled meeting time.

Feminella’s company is one of several in Los Angeles and beyond that are trying to challenge the traditional dating app format by introducing innovative ways to encourage in-person interactions. In an industry based on the constant demand for human connection, new players are emerging as younger daters start using the big apps less.

Los Angeles has become a hotbed for dating app startups looking to grab attention in a crowded market and capitalize on emerging gaps in the most popular apps.

Joseph Ferminella, founder of the dating app First Round’s on Me, runs the startup El Segundo with his wife Hannah, whom he met on Hinge in 2020.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

A handful of apps, including Tinder, Bumble and Hinge, dominate the online dating market but have struggled to grow recently, experts say (Match Group owns both Los Angeles-based Tinder and New York-based Hinge ; Bumble is headquartered in Austin, Texas). ).

One reason: According to Match Group survey data from financial services company Oppenheimer Holdings, Generation Z uses online dating about 11% less than the broader population.

“The online dating industry is still making money, but it is currently facing challenges from a growth perspective,” said Andrew Marok, industry analyst at Raymond James. “The customer base is changing and there are differences in the way Gen Z and Millennials want to meet people.”

Bumble, which once differentiated itself from other dating apps by requiring the woman to send the first message, has seen its shares plunge 55% so far this year after missing revenue expectations. The stock closed Thursday at $6.57, up 1.08%.

Tinder – the dating app giant founded in 2012 – recorded its highest number of paying users in 2022, peaking at 10.8 million after years of rapid growth. The app’s number of paying users fell 5% in 2023 and fell 8% year over year in the second quarter.

Match Group, which owns Match.com, reported a 4% year-over-year increase in second-quarter revenue and a 5% decline in operating income to $205 million in the same period.

Still, Chief Executive Gary Swidler said in an earnings call this year that he believes Hinge is on track to reach $1 billion in annual revenue.

A move away from the “swipe model”

When online dating began in the mid-90s, platforms were largely profile-based, bringing together users with shared interests and values. It was common for users to take a personality quiz or fill out a questionnaire to find matches.

The release of Los Angeles-based Tinder introduced a swipe model, allowing users to decide whether they “like” or “dislike” a potential date based on photos and a short bio. Other apps like Grindr, which is headquartered in West Hollywood and targets gay men, use a location-based model that allows users to browse potential dates in their area.

Tinder, Bumble and Hinge still dominate the online dating market but face major growth challenges. Why?

“There continues to be some product development in the market, but in recent years the swipe-based model has attracted the most attention,” Marok said. “We see that this doesn’t go down quite as well with younger users.”

Gen Z partners prefer a slower, more targeted approach to dating, Marok said, based more on substance and less on split-second decisions. Younger daters are also more likely to turn friends into partners, he said.

“If you look at the swipe-based apps, their goal is to put a large number of strangers in front of the user, which is kind of contradictory to the way Generation Z wants to meet people,” Marok said.

Newer dating apps are trying to offer users a break from swipe fatigue, and numerous LA startups are moving into more advanced dating services and group events for singles.

Feminella’s First Round’s on Me hosts group social events, such as a recent pickleball meetup in West Hollywood that was attended by around 100 singles. The private app has around 175,000 users and, like its competitors, has a freemium model where customers can pay for certain features.

Feminella, 34, hopes his app can offer users a different experience than what they’ve already found on the most popular cohort of dating apps.

“I’ve seen dating apps become more and more unintentional and validation-driven,” Feminella said. “I think they’re missing the point.”

Several other apps host in-person events in Los Angeles, including London-based Feeld, which has been available in California since its launch in 2014.

“We firmly believe that people unblock people, not apps. That’s why it was important to create another dimension in real life for our members to connect with each other,” said Ana Kirova, Managing Director of Feeld.

Summer, a dating app launched in 2022 by Marina del Rey-based tech company 9count, also aims to prioritize in-person meetings and creates a members-only social club. When a user matches with someone on the app, they only have 25 messages to arrange a date before the conversation is blocked.

The Venice-based Lox Club regularly hosts events for its members, such as weekly Shabbat dinners. The company recently released two more community-based dating apps: Jade Club for East Asian dates and Amara Club for South Asians. Lox Club is also preparing to launch a matchmaking service powered by artificial intelligence and human matchmakers, with a waiting list of 10,000 people, according to marketing director Samantha Ratiner.

“The consensus is that people use too many apps and are constantly swiping,” Ratiner said. “It’s so overwhelming and can be a waste of time.”

There are already other tech-enabled dating services in Los Angeles that deviate from traditional dating app formats, such as the self-proclaimed “modern dating company” Three Day Rule.

There seems to be a dating app for everyone and every niche. The league is a platform for students and alumni of elite colleges to find each other; Kippo is a dating app for video gamers; The Fruitz app allows users to search for others who are looking for the same type of relationship.

“There is definitely room for apps that are targeted at specific interest groups or specific populations,” Marok said. “In the app-based dating market, the barriers to entry are relatively low, but the barriers to scaling are quite high.”

Despite the plethora of smaller apps, the vast majority of the market continues to be dominated by Grindr, Bumble and Match Group, the three publicly traded dating app companies, said Jason Helfstein, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.

According to a spokesperson for Match Group, Tinder serves an average of about 50 million monthly users, a scale unmatched by any other app in the category. A 2023 survey conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Tinder found that 55% of singles between the ages of 18 and 25 in the US, UK, Australia and Canada were in a serious relationship with a partner they met on Tinder.

Match Group is building its own range of community-based dating apps, making the space for startups even more crowded. Between 2020 and 2023, Match Group’s apps for gay men, single parents, Christians and the Black and Latino community experienced direct revenue growth at a compound annual rate of more than 70%, the spokesperson said.

Feminella said his company, First Round’s on Me, is seeing month-over-month subscription and revenue growth and is finding success with in-person events. He didn’t disclose financial details, but said he knew he couldn’t realistically compete with apps like Tinder and Hinge.

Tinder user logo on a mobile phone.

(Match group / Tinder)

“For me to even get to this point, they would probably just buy me out,” Feminella said.

After some growth, smaller dating app companies are likely to disappear or be sold to one of the big players, Helfstein said.

“For private companies that focus on a small niche, it will eventually become too expensive to grow,” he said. “There will never be another publicly traded dating company.”

Helfstein described the dating app industry as profitable but somewhat stagnant – Match Group had a profit margin of 37% last year and is at 36% this year.

But Tinder downloads fell for the third straight day this year, and Bumble shares fell 30% in August after missing Wall Street estimates. Artificial intelligence and other new technologies could completely transform the industry and lead to a revival, said Helfstein.

“Maybe in five years online dating will be reborn through virtual reality,” he said. “It’s a healthy business at the moment, but what the market likes is growth.”