Celeste Amadon and Asher Allen were working on an app that used artificial intelligence to book restaurants for dates when they stumbled upon a bigger idea that encourages people to meet in person. And now it’s catching up with investors.
The duo built a voice-powered AI onboarding system for their app that helped them learn more about users without having to fill out a form. What they found: People liked to talk, and it increased session length with the app clocking in at 26 minutes on average. Thus, San Francisco-based dating startup Known was born.
“Our view is that for the first time, we could know enough about someone to offer them a date that would make sense. And if we could do that much faster with a lower bounce rate, we could create a user experience that could get people out on more dates,” he said.
And the first results showed that they were on to something.
In its test phase in San Francisco, Known said it saw 80% of its introductions lead to in-person dates, which is much higher than swipe-based dating apps. Buoyed by these signals, the startup raised $9.7 million from investors including Forerunner and NFX, along with Pear VC and Coelius Capital. Notably, this is the first dating app investment for Forerunner.
“Celeste is a really thoughtful founder who understands the mindset of the consumer, which is a young woman, to be honest. There are other people who can focus on the male demographic, but she focuses on the young woman who has a lot of unspoken wants and needs that if you put them on a profile, they would never say, this vs. that. And I think in a conversation. Matchmaker 10,000 dollars,” Eurie Kim, partner at Forerunner, told TechCrunch.
Amadon said she has always been very interested in social impact at scale and believes dating is inherently one of the biggest problems facing her generation.
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“There’s been a million pieces written about the loneliness epidemic in the U.S., and I really think it’s the biggest problem of our generation,” said Amadon, who, along with Allen, dropped out of Stanford to found the startup.
The app, which is being tested in San Francisco in beta, uses AI-powered voice integration to ask users a series of questions without asking them to fill out any forms. Amadon said that because of this method, the startup is able to learn more about users and provide them with great matches, with onboarding a user coming in one hour and 38 minutes.
According to Known, when people typed their answers, they edited them. With voice, the integration is more distinct. The company’s AI can request dynamic tracking based on the conversation. For example, if someone has recently moved to the city, the AI can ask them what they like and dislike about their experience so far.
Once onboarding is complete, AI suggests potential matches to users. They can ask AI agents about these profiles. If they like a profile, they can click “interested”. When two people are matched, they have 24 hours to accept the introduction and 24 hours to agree on a date. The company said that with this mechanism, the app aims to avoid long chats and ghosting, while encouraging people to meet in real life. After their dates, users can provide their feedback to the AI and receive more refined match suggestions.
Known hasn’t completely abandoned the restaurant concept. The app also helps in selecting restaurants based on users’ likes and dislikes. Using AI chat and calendar integrations, users can also indicate their availability for first dates. In the beta phase, the company charges $30 per successful date. However, the startup is not set on price and said it will experiment with different models to find out which payment method works best.
Today the startup has three full-time engineers and four go-to-market people, with several contractors working across the board. Amadon, whose previous experience includes a policy internship, and Allen, who worked on products at the AI-powered online shopping app Phia, plan to boost their headcount with this funding.
Known is currently testing in San Francisco and plans to launch early next year.
There are several other new start-upsincluding Overtone, Hinge CEO Justin McLeod’s new app, which are trying to use artificial intelligence to learn more about users and try to find matches for them. Some of them claim to offer bespoke matchmaking services costing thousands of dollars at a fraction of the cost. Incumbents like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge are also promoting AI features to keep their user base engaged. Despite the growing number of startups, Amadon welcomes competition.
“In terms of other startup dating products, I’m very happy to see a lot of people building in the space because I think it’s time to move away from a swipe-based model. And I think most of what I’ve seen has been quite different from what we’re building at Known,” he said.
