A pair of friends who launched a dating app for the black community believe it could rival Tinder and Bumble in the next few years.
Dayo Israel, 36, set up Melanin Matchmaker as a London-based match-making service in 2019 after talking to friends who said they were finding it difficult to meet ‘the one’ despite the plethora of dating sites and apps now swamping the market.
When lockdown hit in 2020, and meeting in person became all but impossible, Mr Israel reached out to his friend Michelle Jima, who ran her own marketing business, for advice. The duo, who have known each other since they were teens, decided there was a gap in the market for a black dating app and went into business together.
In just two years, Melanin Matchmaker has grown to 50,000 users in the UK and US, and is on a sharp growth trajectory. The app, which is free to use but has a number or premium features that can be paid for, is attracting plenty of attention in Britain, particularly in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol.
“Dayo and myself are both Nigerian and that makes us a minority group,” said Ms Jima. “Nigerian is different to, say, a black person from Jamaica or Somalia. Mainstream apps don’t acknowledge these things, and rightly so as it has to be for the masses. But our business was birthed to support that [gap].”
According to Ms Jima, the app has already been the catalyst for successful relationships, engagements and marriages - and has even led to one pregnancy. But despite early success, it’s not been an easy ride for the pair, who say they have been accused of racism by those outside of the black community. They have also been criticised by some people within it, Ms Jima said, who have complained the app “isn’t good enough”.
She explained: “The biggest thing I have struggled with emotionally is the backlash of commentary because there are some people who say it’s racist. That’s not it. We saw a need for people who want to find it easier to settle down with people who are just like them, and have the same religion, upbringing and beliefs as them. There have always been Muslim, Indian and Jewish dating apps but there haven’t been dating apps that support the black community. We are not doing anything different as such.”
Ms Jima said Melanin Matchmaker aims to connect people who are looking for the same things culturally.
“They might want someone from a certain tribe, which is really niche. It’s country, then cross-country and then tribe. You can’t do that on Hinge. Melanin Matchmaker allows people the ability to have a free rein and select things that are very unique to the black culture, even things like ‘are you a sickle cell carrier?’. That is primarily an issue that exists within the black community and it’s important to be able to ask that.”
Although it is not the first black dating app on the market - competitors include Match.com’s free dating app BLK and US-based Black Gentry - Ms Jima believes Melanin Matchmaker offers more to users.
The app includes a personality test when initially setting up that assigns the user to an animal, such as a lion, that will appear on the person’s profile, and there is a filter for intentions and hobbies.
“We give a lot away for free before you start paying - more so than our competitors do,” said Ms Jima. “You only have to wait up to 20 minutes for verification too and you can still get into the app, which you can’t with some others.”
In April, Melanin Matchmaker raised a significant amount in its first pre-seed funding round. Mr Israel and Ms Jima had already pumped tens of thousands of pounds of their own money into the app, and felt they had “hit the ceiling” in terms of spending their own cash.
After sending out just a few emails, the pair very quickly secured a lead backer, who invested £150,000 for 10% of the business. The money raised has been used for marketing and rebranding, including updating the website and app development, but also helped the duo launch the app in New York to much success.
Earlier this year the business also launched in West Africa but was forced to withdraw after “significant security and authenticity challenges”. Although Ms Jima does not say exactly what the problems were, she says she is confident about relaunching in West Africa when the company is “better equipped” to deal with any issues and provide an “authentic user experience”.
The company also has its sights on further expansion across the pond, with Miami and Atlanta next on the list of areas for launch.
“We want to dominate the areas where we know the target demographic sits and let people know we are here. We want to start reaching out more into the community and see what more we can do to help and guide people.”
There are also plans for the business to expand to offer relationship counselling and also use artificial intelligence (AI) to carry out more matchmaking within the app.
“We are about to start sending emails out any minute for the next round of funding. That is the immediate plan - to secure more funding and go all guns blazing on the marketing front and exposing ourselves to more people and new markets,” added Ms Jima.
“I do think we could rival Bumble and Tinder, primarily because of how much we are growing. Bumble has billions of dollars behind them, while our budget is miniscule by comparison. And yet our growth has been so natural. I hear people saying they met someone on Melanin Matchmaker and I don’t tell them I have anything to do with it. We have attracted so many people and have so many great success stories already.”
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