Happn Raise $8m For Worldwide Expansion
French real life encounters app Happn has raised $8m in funding to help its international expansion.
The dating startup, which launched in London this year, has raised money from European venture fund DN Capital – who invested in Shazam – and French VC firm Alven Capital.
They also raised funds from private investors including French entrepreneur Fabrice Grinda and former-IAC executive Paul Gardi.
Happn’s founder and CEO Didier Rappaport, who was a co-founder and COO of Dailymotion, has said the funds will go to further their worldwide expansion.
Rappaport said that they “designed happn with the real world in mind to give our users a chance at love at second sight and keep the digital to a minimal. We’re absolutely delighted with the support we’ve received so far and are looking forward to expanding into new markets in 2015.”
The app is currently live in London, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona and New York.
Happn plan to launch in three new cities each month – starting in December with Chicago, Los Angeles and Sydney.
In the new year, Happn will begin to target South America.
Since launching 10 months ago Happn has amassed 1m users, and been a real hit on UK shores with its inventive USP and clever marketing strategy – which focuses on the app picking up “people you’ve passed” – although Happn also functions as a location-based discovery app for singles in your vicinity.
The French app, which is free for women and sells premium features to men, says they see 200,000 users logging in every day.
When we spoke to Happn in August, they had 100,000 daily active users.
Nina Marovac, the founder and managing partner at DN Capital, said Happn was “innovating and differentiating itself in a very attractive space and we believe DN Capital and our network, including some of the co-investors we brought in such as Fabrice Grinda and Paul Gardi, can support the Company to expand to the US and can help provide the resources to build the next big player in the multi-billion dollar mobile dating market.”
Read our interview with Happn here, and download the app here.
