The founder of Happn has responded to the release of a new Match.com feature that borrows heavily from the French dating app.
In a statement released yesterday, CEO Didier Rappaport said the move made the company proud, as “imitation is the highest form of flattery”.
Match.com’s new mobile feature is called Missed Connections, and aims to connect members who have “crossed paths in real life”.
The location-based feature, available this week on iOS and Android, lets singles browse through profiles of members they recently crossed paths with in the real world.
The missed connections section also shows the location of the last place they crossed paths, within one block, and the number of times they have passed each other.
The release is heavily influenced by French dating app Happn’s main focus, both in the way the tool works, and the language Match.com has used to describe it.
Happn’s own App Store listing reads as follows: “Happn is the app which helps you discover the people you’ve crossed paths with, the people you like, and the people you’d like to find again! Happn is the app that saves us from missed connections.”
And after the feature was launched on Wednesday, the founder & CEO of the French dating company released a statement to the press addressing the similarities.
Rappaport said Happn’s own offering is “unmatched” and that the product remains “the one and only” dating app based around connecting real people in their daily lives.
Read the full statement below:
“When we hear other dating services are following our lead, it makes us proud because we are confident that what Happn offers is unmatched. After all, imitation is the highest form of flattery. Happn was founded on a mission to create a simple-to-use service that connects people with those around them in their daily lives.
“And to this day, Happn remains the one and only dating app based on this premise. Others have rolled out similar features based on Happn’s concept – but the heart of what we do speaks directly to our core philosophy when it comes to dating.
“We are connecting people in real life, in real-time by solving a very specific, real world problem: we are giving people a second chance at missed connections. A chance encounter can happen anywhere you are – on the way to work, while at the gym or at the grocery store. There is no algorithm that can take the place of natural human chemistry.
“Our goal is to continue to create meaningful impact, not only on the online dating industry, but also to our 26 million users around the world. That is our mission!”
In an interview last year, Rappaport revealed that Happn is planning to release a “game-changing” product feature in Q2 of this year, after closing out another impressive year of growth.
The company now has over 80 employees in its Paris headquarters, is live in 40 countries and saw its user base more than double from 10m to 25m over the course of the year.
Read more about Match.com’s new release here.