According to a 2011 Pew Research report called “Global Christianity“, there are over 2bn Christians worldwide – a figure that has almost tripled since 1910.
The founders of new Christian dating app called Grafted Love estimate that of this number, around 50m are single, and they want to pitch their new dating product as a modern alternative for a market they feel is “not adequately addressed”.
Launched in December last year by married co-founders Natalie & Alex Mutambudzi, Grafted Love is a UK-based dating app powered by M14 Industries that aims to offer single Christians a different option to more mainstream apps like Tinder.
Alex Mutambudzi explains: “Grated Love was built out of a passion of bringing Christian dating to your fingertips though a mobile application, but still be as authentic as a faith-based platform.
“We started Grafted Love as an antithesis to Tinder and similar dating apps.
“The basis of Grafted Love was to provide a platform for dating and for marriage and lasting relationships, where like-minded individuals could connect for more than just a casual “hook up.”
How does Grafted Love work?
After singles sign up using their Facebook account, Grafted Love displays possible matches in a scrollable list, and enables them to either like or hide other members’ profiles.
Singles can choose to receive messages from anyone using the app, or just the people they match with, and can start chatting if they mutually like each other.
They can do all of this for free, but the product also offers a £9.99 per month subscription service, which allows singles to see who has liked them and visited their profile, as well as giving unlimited messages.
The Christian online dating market
When we spoke to Alex Mutambudzi, he said that the Christian dating market is shifting, as a number of millennials are now moving away from traditional means of meeting potential partners towards online dating.
That said, a number of Christians are still against the idea of meeting a partner online, Mutambudzi said.
In addition to this, although the UK, US and European countries have a large number of Christians, the number of young Christians is growing rapidly across China, Brazil, the Philippines and Russia.
In fact, Grafted Love claims that its third largest market in terms of registered members is the Philippines.
Speaking about why they wanted to launch an app in the Christian market, Alex Mutambudzi said: “The Christian market is a growing market. Natalie and I being Christians ourselves know how difficult it was to meet someone that shares your same values and beliefs when your faith is a very integral part of your lifestyle.
“There are Christians all over the world facing the same challenge of meeting a like-minded mate, and although there are a number of apps available on the market, only a few are genuine in addressing the needs of the single Christian.
“We strongly felt that the Christian single market was not adequately addressed in a way that Christian singles felt comfortable to interact respectfully.”
Mutambudzi said the team are hoping to grow Grafted Love with a mixture of marketing campaigns and Google AdWords, as well as event partnerships with churches.
In terms of product, over 2017 they want to introduce more features, improve the messaging functions and add different languages and currencies.
Find out more about Grafted Love here.