New DelhiHomegrown dating app TrulyMadly on Tuesday announced a pre-series A funding round of Rs16 crore (approximately $2.1 million). PayTM founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and InMobi co-founders Abhay Singhal and Piyush Shah joined in the round. Other investors include startup incubator Venture Catalysts, 9 Unicorns, angel investor Ruchi Sihare, and existing investors Inflection Point Ventures.
The funding round comes close on the heels of a 4X revenue growth for the company from tier-II and tier-III towns, such as Bhubaneswar, Gwalior, Kanpur, Patna, Rajkot, Varanasi, and Vijayawada. The company claims it has over 8.5 million users at the moment. TrulyMadly also raised Rs8.1 crore from Inflection Point Ventures, Chennai Angels and AngelList last year, which was part of the same round. The company said it will use the fresh capital to build new product offerings, expand into other countries and “boost its technology by leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)” algorithms.
“Our next stage of growth will be led by further developing our technology platform to enhance experience and increase our reach in tier-II and tier-III cities,” said Snehil Khanor, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of TrulyMadly. “In the next six months we are slated to launch some amazing new product features to cater specifically to the Indian way of dating,” Khanor claimed.
The Delhi-based dating app was founded in 2014, and has battled against global giants Tinder and Bumble in the country. The app saw an overhaul in 2014, changing its user interface and overall persona. TrulyMadly also boasts a “Compatibility Assessment Tool”, which the company claims was created with guidance from “leading Indian psychologists”. The company says it rejects 42% of the profiles that apply to become a member on the platform.
