Every dating app has trained us to do the same thing — swipe through hundreds of profiles and hope something sticks. My next guest thought that model was broken, so he built something that does not let you swipe at all. No endless scrolling. No writing a bio about yourself. Just AI making the introduction the way a family matchmaker always has. Ten weeks after launching in the UAE, he is already past 3,000 signups and opening his first funding round. Joining me is Zain Shaikh, Founder of Auntee. Zain, welcome to Capital Markets.
Thank you.
You did not originally set out to build an AI dating company. You came from an AI platform for matching employees with candidates. What made you realise the technology also works with dating?
I had zero intention of creating a dating app. I started a company called Sit at the Table where we matched candidates with employers. Rather than applying for a job, people were interviewed about their own experience — and then matched with an employer we thought would be a good fit, with a compatibility score. We were using AI voice inference as the technology. As I started presenting that to people at trade shows, I started to hear people saying — this is interesting, but could you do this for dating? That is where Auntee started as an idea. In January of this year we did a rough version — a web-based version — and in three days we had 350 signups. It felt like there was something to work from. And that is where we went into the full build.
Dating apps trained us to swipe left and right and scroll endlessly. Why do you believe AI-curated introductions work better?
Everyone has spoken to someone who is just exhausted with dating apps. Tired of swiping endlessly. You get zero information — you are making decisions based off a profile photo, maybe an Instagram bio and a couple of interests. But the things that make a good relationship succeed are values. Values are very hard to capture with just a few tags. But we can capture them through an interview. With AI today we can capture those values through a 15 to 20 minute detailed interview.
So the AI does an interview with the person and from that it suggests matches?
It does the interview with everyone who joins the platform. Then you hire Auntee to go out looking for people for you. Once you have hired Auntee, she will start searching and introduce you carefully to people she thinks you are a good fit with. She gives you a compatibility score when she presents that person — she will say you are an 85% match and give a breakdown of the percentage score for each category.
Do you see the picture of the person first?
There are three screens. The first is essentially like an envelope — Auntee presents a teaser. You click on meet that person, and she gives you a breakdown of why she thinks you are a good fit. Still no photo. Then you click the next screen and you see the photo and the compatibility score.
And Auntee also makes the introduction?
We have tried to solve the problem of that first awkward conversation on dating apps. Because Auntee has so much information about both of you, she can make a connection — hey, the two of you seem to be interested in this particular thing, why not talk about that. Or: one thing I have noticed is you have the same five-year vision, but actually the way you look at family is quite different — that is something for you two to talk about.
You reached almost 4,000 signups in ten weeks. What are those numbers telling you?
Our cost of acquisition is modelled for a much higher number than what we are actually achieving — we have massively outperformed our business model. We turned on paid subscribers just one week ago so we are now getting our first paid users through. The first two months were essentially free for everyone to use Auntee.
What do you expect Auntee to change in the dating scene?
We have lived in this period of about ten years of the Tinder, Bumble, Hinge world — so swipe based. There is a real change happening in dating right now. A new evolution of dating apps is coming through. We are hoping to be the leader in that — being the most human version of what a dating app can be. A much more lean-back experience. We do not want people sitting over a phone scrolling endlessly. That is what the whole tech world is trying to move away from today as well.
Thank you so much for being with us today.
Thank you so much.
