AUSTIN -- Anyone who has tried online dating knows that it can be a challenge at times. Hinge, one of the 2013 SXSW Accelerator finalists is one of several companies at SXSW this year trying to make that process easier. In the case of Hinge, the app helps you meet people to date through mutual Facebook friends.
“We’re like the best host at the biggest cocktail party you’ve ever been invited to ... every day,” Hinge CEO Justin McLeod told Mashable.
Each day at noon the app gives you a new group of friends of friends to check out on the service and rate. A profile picture is shown for each person as well as where they went to school, their job and what friends you have in common.
As a user, you rate the people you’re sent on a scale of one to five based on how interested you are in meeting them. If both of you rate each other a four or higher, then Hinge will introduce you via email.
Hinge was founded by McLeod on Valentine’s Day 2011, while he was attending Harvard Business School. Bennett Richardson, the company's CMO, joined Hinge last spring. He and McLeod were roommates and best friends at Colgate University, where they both received they undergraduate degrees.
The company was founded under the premise that young professionals are tired of trying to meet people at parties and bars, but think that traditional online dating sites are awkward, and provide too “random” results. Since you’re already connected in a way to someone you meet using Hinge, the relationship might last longer.
The company is one of the charter tenants of 1776, a new startup campus in Washington DC, and raised $650k in seed funding, led by 500 Startups and Piedmont Capital. It is currently raising a bridge round of funding of approximately $1 million.
The app made its debut in Washington on February 7, and is currently available exclusively for iPhone.
You can download Hinge for iPhone now, and follow the service on its website.