Welcome back to Closing Bell and cheddar news, everyone
. Have you ever been on a dating app swiping
endlessly through profiles without finding the right match. Well
, new startup says its aim is to fix the
problem by making profiles more personal with the use of
sound, take a listen. Hey, this is
my halo, like Michaela, but with an H
I look for kindness, understanding the word Home to
me is very special. A movie that described me
will be called The Go getter because that's the type
of person that people usually say I am okay,
well, spoon me ask users to record a voice
clip to tell others about themselves and what they're looking
for in a partner while hiding their real faces using
an avatar instead. So joining me now is time
to Gupta founder and Ceo of Swoon me Tanvi,
thanks so much for coming on this show. I
love what you're doing here. Talk to me more
about your app and how you came up with this
idea. Hi Kristin, I'm happy to be here
. Um so you know, spoon means all about
finding meaningful connections and we know finding meaningful connections is
a core human need. However, almost all platforms
that are hot at the moment for social connections like
dating apps like Tinder bumble social media. I G
Tiktok are heavily indexed on how one looks and not
on underlying personalities or interest and this is especially challenging
for women and minority and we want to change this
by empowering users to find meaningful connections based on voice
avatar's personality with our focus initial focus on dating.
we're basically giving everyone an equal opportunity without any bias
. So soon me is poised to be a metaverse
social network with a mission to empower users to find
meaningful connections and the way I came up with this
, it's basically a product of my own personal grievances
of dating in new york city, so I was
on about like 7 to 8 dating apps when I
was a single girl in my early twenties, so
and I always felt it was so superficial, I
was always just like getting judged on these filtered static
photos and I just felt something needed to change.
I saw a clear gap in the market where we
needed to provide ways for people to connect that go
beyond just one static photo. So and I think
when I worked at at meta, so I felt
I have this wealth of consumer technology experience and I
just wanted to build something of my own and being
entrepreneurial in nature. I think it was just time
to just dive in and test my hypothesis and and
it's actually resonating pretty well with our users? Good
. Okay, creative name swoon me as well,
I like it as so 100,000 users, I think
we were showing their recently launched just last year,
I believe, how are you planning to grow the
act on the um well I think the way we're
planning to grow it is right now, we are
in U. S. And Canada in India.
And then we are going to be launching it in
europe pretty soon and also in Australia and other asian
countries. So I think what we are our long
term goals here is that soon we will be a
leading platform for users to find me meaningful connections and
metaphors. So animated avatars which are really talking video
style avatars will provide a private yet expressive way for
users to connect based on common interests. So and
I think um this giving this delightful fun experiences to
users which is and our target demographic is gen z's
, it's resonating with them. So so I think
Um given the growth that we have seen, I
think we're ready to basically scale at this point we're
looking for, we're raising the second round of seed
of seed funding which is$2 million 20% has been
committed already. So as soon as we get more
funding we're like ready to scale the hell out of
this. And in terms of the cost to the
consumer Tanvi, is it free or do consumers need
to pay? Um it's free at the moment but
we do plan to monetize um in the you know
long term by giving value added services like um sending
custom stickers to each other, participating in events to
find romantic partner, premium features to customize the avatar
with Brandon branded content like adorning your avatar and a
Gucci shirt or allowing users to give virtual goods like
flower clothes, accessories to each other? Which is
a completely different model than ad based model that you
see on apps like Tiktok instagram and and that's something
that will vibe well with a privacy focused at.
Um I really, I think this is great.
How do you measure meaningful connection? How do you
make sure that your users are getting that on the
app? Sure. Um so we have many product
lovers which nudge users to create high quality profiles with
engaging avatars and sound bites. So this process is
good in separating users who are serious about looking for
relationships and helps us focus on them. Example if
you're for example, if your sound bite is low
quality or empty, you are not activated on the
plan and we will lead you to record something exciting
to let other users know a little bit about you
separately. Not having pictures automatically is a forcing function
which dictates, you know, which users are serious
about finding meaningful relationships. So I would say that
the the bar to sign up on swimming is already
higher. It requires a lot out of a user
to actually go in and record or you know,
intros in your own voice and messages in your own
voice. So it just automatically filters out people who
are just looking for casual hook ups and not looking
for something meaningful in their lives? Uh huh And
what about the ability to boost a profile? Is
that something that you might explore down the road or
how would you discover? For instance? That's probably
the better question. What's the discover ability on on
swoon me? Yeah. So there are two ways
. One is that um I think in the long
term we will let users and long term, I
mean like very near term our plans to monetize our
by end of this year. So um people will
be able to pay and get their profile surface like
on like, you know, top trending profiles in
people's other users areas. And the other way to
surface your profile um on the trending tab, which
we have on spoon meat is that you record like
a kick a quality sound bite. Like talking about
yourself that maximizes your chances. Um you know,
to get more matches, but it also surfaces you
on the platform. Like you saw a trending trending
tab video that you do showed your audience. That's
the way to ask, basically the feedback loop.
So think about like I g explore or Tiktok top
trending content. That's how we have top trending content
on spoon me. So if you like there is
go for like audio bites that can go viral in
social media from tsunami in the near future. I
love it. I guess my last question is you're
looking to raise money now, when are you hoping
to close your next round? We're hoping to close
by end of september and like I said, we're
raising$2 million of which 20% has been committed.
We have money from VC firms, um, like
Good Water Capital here in Silicon Valley and also Angels
. But we are looking for some big investors to
come and come on board and complete this round with
us. Oh, Tommy Gupta! Thank you so
much for coming on. I really enjoyed hearing about
this. Tommy is the founder and Ceo of swoon 00:07:40.019 --> me.