London Startup CiaoDate Launches £104,000 Crowdfunding Campaign To Fund Date-Focused App

New date-orientated mobile app CiaoDate has just launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £104,000.

The London-based startup, which was a finalist at this year’s GDI Spotlight awards, is offering 12.18% equity at a valuation of £750,000.

The mobile app takes cues from the recent “on-demand” dating trend, letting users find a match and organise a date all within the app, rather than focusing on browsing and messaging.

CiaoDate lets users pinpoint their location and search for potential dates using a map-style layout that shows nearby singles, letting them browse profiles and “nudge”, “chat”, or “remove” people they find.

What makes it different to other dating apps is that, in addition to photos and personal information, each profile details the kind of date the person is looking to go on, their budget and general availability.

In its campaign listing, founder Alex Ziff explains the company’s philosophy: “Our vision is for Ciao to become a platform for people to get a complete date experience through meeting people, and find date ideas/offers in order to plan the date itself for both couples and singles.

“We believe the biggest problem in the dating market to be that people aren’t dating. 1 in 3 people never actually make it from the initial match to an actual date, which leads people to leave these apps.

“Countless singles say that online dating has just become more admin, there are too many chats, conversations are missed and the connection only comes when they meet face to face.”

To change this, Ciao wants to focus more on the date, and aims to achieve this by partnering with date venues like restaurants, galleries and cafes.

To date, the startup has signed up partners such as Mews of Mayfair, Maddox Gallery, Getti, Frederick Bar, Mayfair Pizza, Cafe Sol and Cartizze Bar.

In terms of stats, CiaoDate, which launched back in May 2016, has so far generated 15,000 downloads, 42,900 profile views and seen over 19,500 messages sent between users.

And having launched its Crowdcube campaign earlier this week, the dating startup has so far raised £7,410, with 28 days left to reach its target of £104,000.

Check out the campaign here.