Working professional-focused dating app Betterhalf.ai raises $500K seed fund

Online dating startup Betterhalf.ai has raised a seed funding of $500,000 from former Google India managing director Shailesh Rao, former Flipkart investment director Vinay Subramanian, FirstPenguin Capital’s Rehan A Khan.

Other senior leaders from Google, Uber, and Amazon also participated in the Bengaluru and Massachusetts-based startup. The seed capital will be deployed towards building AI capabilities and investing further in innovative technology and talent.

With the fresh funding, the startup has raised about $750,000.

Founded in 2016 by Pawan Gupta and Rahul Namdev, Betterhalf.aI helps professionals to find a perfect match through true compatibility scores based on multiple relationship dimensions and their interactions on the product.

The AI-based startup works on past relationship data of millions of couples worldwide and provides a combination of personalised experience, targeted subset of matches, and quick turn-around time to find compatible partners.

It provides verified matches with professionals working at companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, LinkedIn, Adobe, and Accenture, including several others.

To keep off fake and junk profile, Betterhalf has deployed a six-level verification process that includes user’s mobile number, work email, personal email, government ID, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Winning over dating space in India is not easy as apps here aren’t used the way they are in the West.

So far, likes of Tinder and Truly Madly have only been able to penetrate the premium segment in India, and its reach is limited to certain social classes in metros and top cities.

Unlike Tinder, Bumble and others, Betterhalf.ai has kept its focus only on working professionals who are looking for partners with the intent of marriage. While it’s still early days for the app, it would be interesting to see how users respond to Betterhalf.ai value proposition.