Shaadi Owner Acquires Popularity-Focused Dating App Frivil

The owner of Shaadi.com has just acquired Indian dating app Frivil for an undisclosed sum.

Frivil was built by Delhi-based Thrill Pte Ltd, a company Shaadi’s owner People Group invested in last January.

People Media bought a 25% stake in the dating app company Thrill, which was founded in November 2012 by Americans Devin Serago and Josh Israel, for an estimated $1m.

And now Shaadi’s owner has acquired Frivil, a gamified dating app that matches users together based on their shared popularity.

Frivil, whose tagline is “Join the face off that pays off”, first shows users two potential matches and asks them to choose one.

These Hot-or-Not-style ratings are then recorded by Frivil, added to your profile’s popularity chart, and the dating product uses the data to match you with singles who have similar levels of popularity.

Every evening at 9pm, Frivil works out users’ popularity and location, and “people in the same league show up in your inbox as your matches for the night.”

With the acquisition, Frivil’s intellectual property rights and brand will become part of People Group.

Despite this, the app, which is available on iOS and Android, will continue to operate as a separate entity to Shaadi.

Speaking about the deal, Thrill founder Josh Israel said: “We’ve been fortunate to have Shaadi.com as an investor in our company at a very early stage.

“They’ve helped guide us and provide assistance in more ways than one along the way. We now look forward to assisting Shaadi.com with the transition of our products into their portfolio.”

Thrill Group also operates the dating platform Fropper, which has over 4m members.

Find out more about Frivil here.