THE MOST ANTICIPATED DATING APP, THURSDAY SECURES £2.5MILLION INVESTMENT

The dating app breaks previous tech investment records within only one month of launching  

MONDAY 28 JUNE 2021; British founded dating app, Thursday has secured £2.5million investment. Set out to raise £1.25 million in 10 days, the co-founders George Rawlings and Matt McNeill Love achieved the milestone in four days, then later closed the round with £2.5million of investment. The app made its debut in London and New York on Thursday 27th May, with thousands of love-hungry males and females sending over 100,000 likes, resulting in almost 7,000 matches in one day.

The team used Ascension Ventures to kick start the round as well as Best Nights VC (previously M-Venture) the investment arm of Jägermeister, Connect Ventures (https://www.connectventures.co) early backers of CityMapper, TypeForm and FIIT all of which was processed through SeedLegals.

Notable angels that have invested in the start up dating platform include; Tom Blomfield, founder of Monzo, Matt Robinson, founder of GoCardless and Nested, Ian Hogarth, founder of Songkick; Eldar Tuvey, founder of Wandera and Henry de Zoute, founder of LookAfterMyBills. 

The investment will be used to grow the ‘A Team’ at Thursday. Noteworthy new roles will include Head Of Growth, Head of Marketing, a Finance Director and a new Chairman as well as a vast uplift in the development team with eight new tech roles being hired. The money will also be used to implement a six figure marketing strategy and fund future plans to introduce the app into a number of major cosmopolitan cities around the world with a view to becoming the most widely used dating app globally. 

Co-founder George Rawlings comments “Just four weeks into launching and we’re delighted to have a number of notable investors on board who really believe in our vision and back this app. We’ve got big plans with a clear mission, to change a culture of how people date. This is just the start and we will deliver. Dating apps just got exciting again.”

Co-founder Matt McNeill Love comments

“This is the first version of Thursday and it’s definitely not perfect so in the short term we are going to use this time to tighten up the app, introduce some new features and continue to develop our matching algorithm to make it the most efficient and intuitive matching system on the market. We’re also going to be introducing a not been done before, revolutionary feature, which will really assist with matches resulting in dates.”

Thursday is currently live across London and New York  and has had over 52,000 downloads. Last Thursday (17th June 2021) over 110,000 likes were sent, resulting in 7,500 matches in one day. 

Being single should be celebrated, because it’s not forever. 

#TheresMoreToLifeThanDatingApps  #ThursdayDating

-ENDS-

For further information, interviews or images please contact Amelia Clark

Email: [email protected] 

NOTES TO EDITORS

ABOUT THURSDAY

Aware of the indecisive nature of millennial brits, and born from the belief that people are spending too much time on dating apps, this launch is set to carve new waves in the dating world by only being live on one day of the week, Thursdays. 

The app is tech to get you OFF tech. Coming to life at 00.01 every Thursday morning it encourages users to spend less time swiping and more time meeting others, enjoying the journey of being single. Thursday cuts out the crap, meaning less time making boring small talk.  It’s all about getting out and meeting people and making Thursday the most exciting day of the week to be single, every week. All matches and conversation disappear at midnight, so you have to act quickly and be a bit spontaneous if you want to secure a date that night. 

Thursday serves no catfish. All users are verified before they join with either an upload of their passport or driving license, this is a key safety feature on the app. In addition, the app will take abusive messages extremely seriously and not tolerate hate speech, including racism, body shaming or misogynistic commentary. The app will block these users meaning they will not be able to return and encourages users to speak up and report issues where possible.

A spotlight has been shone on mental health like never before and the team could not be happier that it is at the forefront of conversation. The app only works one day a week, encouraging users to enjoy time for themselves aiming to eliminate those who spend countless evenings scrolling and matching for the sake of it, solving boring ‘dating app fatigue’. 

There are also a limited number of VIP memberships available. For a monthly fee, VIP members will be boosted all day (x60 increased visibility), be able to send unlimited likes, but also be able to unlock Saturday. Double the fun every week. 

App mechanics

• Users upload five photos and share topline information about themselves, images can be taken from apps including Facebook, Instagram as well your camera roll.
• There are prompts to answer questions for users to engage with personality 
• Thursday also offers users to upload ‘stories’, similar to other social media sites, allowing users to share short video clips with potential matches that are automatically deleted after 24 hours
• Potential matches are based on rough location, so you can work out a convenient place to meet up – exact location is never shared.
• Users are encouraged to only log on in the morning if they are free that evening
• Users can match with up to x10 people a day