Celeste Amadon and Asher Allen were working on an app that used AI to book restaurants for dates, when they stumbled on a bigger idea that encourages people to meet in person. And now it’s catching on with investors.
The duo created a voice-powered AI onboarding system for its app that helped them learn more about users without them having to fill out a form. What they discovered: people loved to talk, and that increased the length of the onboarding session with the app clocking 26 minutes on average. That is how San Francisco-based dating startup Known was born.
“Our take is that for the first time, we could know enough about somebody to serve them a date that would make sense. And if we could do that much faster with less rejection rate, we could create a user experience that could get people out on more dates,” she said.
And early results suggested they were on to something.
In its test phase in San Francisco, Known said it observed 80% of its introductions led to physical dates, which is much higher than swipe-based dating apps. Buoyed by these signals, the startup has raised $9.7 million from investors, including Forerunner and NFX, along with PearVC and Coelius Capital. Notably, this is the first dating app investment for Forerunner.
“Celeste is a really thoughtful founder to understand the mindset of the consumer, which is a young female, to be honest. There are other people who can be focused on the male demographic, but she is focused on the young female who has a lot of unspoken desires and needs that, if you put them in a profile, they would never say, this versus that. And I think in a conversation, you can get a lot of those nuances out, but in the past, the conversation required a $10,000 matchmaker,” Eurie Kim, a partner at Forerunner, told TechCrunch.
Amadon said she has always been very interested in social impact at scale, and thinks dating is inherently one of the biggest problems facing her generation.
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“There’s been a million pieces written about the loneliness epidemic in the U.S. And I do really think that it’s our generation’s largest problem,” said Amadon, who, along with Allen, dropped out of Stanford to build the startup.
The app, which is under testing in San Francisco in beta, uses voice AI-powered onboarding to ask several questions to users without having them fill out any forms. Amadon said because of this modality, the startup is able to know more about users and provide them with great matches, with one user clocking in at an hour and 38 minutes long onboarding.
When people typed their responses out, they would edit them, according to Known. With voice, the onboarding is more personable. The company’s AI can ask dynamic follow-ups based on the conversation. For instance, if someone has newly moved to the city, AI can ask them about what they like and dislike about their experience thus far.
Once the onboarding is complete, the AI suggests potential matches to users. They can ask AI agents about those profiles. If they like a profile, they can tap on “interested.” When two people are matched, they have 24 hours to accept the introduction and 24 hours to agree to a date. The company said that with this mechanism, the app is trying to avoid lingering chats and ghosting while encouraging people to meet in real life. Post their dates, users can provide their feedback to AI and get more refined recommendations for matches.
Known hasn’t completely ditched the restaurant idea. The app also helps in picking restaurants based on user likes and dislikes. Using the AI chat and calendar integrations, users can also inform about their availability for the first dates. In the beta phase, the company charged $30 per successful date. However, the startup is not set on the price and said it will experiment with different models to find out what payment modality works the best.
Today the startup has three full-time engineers and four people working on go-to-market, with several contractors working in all areas. Amadon, whose previous experience includes internships in politics, and Allen, who worked on product at AI-powered online shopping app Phia, plan to bolster headcount with this fundraiser.
Known is currently testing in San Francisco and plans to launch early next year.
There are several other new startups, including Hinge CEO Justin McLeod’s new app called Overtone, that are trying to use AI to know more about users and try to find matches for them. Some of them want to claim that they are bringing bespoke services of matchmakers that cost thousands of dollars at a fraction of the cost. Incumbents like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge are also pushing AI features to keep their userbase engaged. Despite the growing number of startups, Amadon is happy with the competition.
“When it comes to other startup dating products, I’ve been so happy to see a lot of people building in the space because I think it shows that it’s time to shift away from a swipe-based model. And I think most of them that I’ve seen have been pretty different from what we’re building at Known,” She said.