Latest news with #Mullaji
CNBC
07-08-2025
- CNBC
Her friends were 'terrified' of dating apps, so this 30-year-old founder turned to AI to help singles find love
For Nandini Mullaji, romantic setups have always been a way of life. The 30-year-old grew up in Mumbai, India where "matchmaking is a very, very strong part of the culture," she says. In fact, Mullaji's grandmother was a matchmaker and successfully set up two of her aunts. Mullaji attended boarding school in the U.S., then Georgetown University for undergrad and eventually Stanford for a combined MBA and master's in education. It was there that she was confronted with one of the major problems with modern dating: People were tired of swiping. Her friends were "successful, good looking, amazing women," she says, but "they were terrified of having to get back on the apps." In 2023, Mullaji, who was part of the team that launched Bumble in India years prior, went to work building her first dating app, Setup, which would set users up per their availability during the week. She quickly realized it didn't offer the kind of solution dating needed. "It didn't feel like this big, life changing product," she says. "It felt like a feature." The following year Mullaji met Chad DePue, who'd previously led teams at Snapchat and Microsoft. The two realized large language models like ChatGPT could be leveraged to create an AI matchmaker that leans into the tradition of Mullaji's homeland. Together they built Sitch, a pay-per-setup app that uses AI to identify the best romantic matches, which launched in December 2024. There has been a lot of interest in how AI might impact the future of dating — both from eager singles and investors. As of July 2025, Sitch has raised $6.7 million in pre-seed and seed funding and boasts "tens of thousands of users," Mullaji says. Here's what Sitch has that the other apps don't, and why Mullaji believes AI matchmaking is the solution modern dating needs. Mullaji identified several problems with the current dating apps. To start, users have too many options, she says. Next, messages in and sometimes out of the app rarely lead to actual dates, according to Mullaji. A 2022 study by Stanford researchers surveyed more than 1,000 Tinder users and half said they were not actually interested in meeting offline, citing reasons like boredom for why they're even on the app. Most importantly, Mullaji says, the information you get about a person via dating apps is limited and superficial, which leads to a "fundamental mismatch of values that would only reveal itself after a few dates." Daters are fatigued by conversations that go nowhere and dates that feel like a waste of time and money. Mullaji and DePue's solution is to have its AI do the heavy lifting upfront, which distinguishes Sitch from apps like Bumble, which uses AI primarily to enhance user safety and Hinge, whose AI features include a coach that gives feedback on your profile. On its website, Sitch promises daters a "personal matchmaker that's actually affordable, and will introduce you to someone you will actually vibe with." Singles can download the app or request a phone call via a prompt on the app's website to speak with an AI chatbot that was trained on Mullaji's own experience as a matchmaker — it even has her voice. Users then answer questions posed by the "matchmaker." They include straightforward questions about your interests and ideal date, but also questions meant to go deeper and identify a person's priorities and values, like about who you've dated in the past, what you liked and didn't like about them and what your dating goals are. Once the app has at least five possible matches based on user preferences, it starts sending those their way. Users can then ask questions about the other person, and when the app suggests someone they're interested in who's interested back, the AI matchmaker makes an introduction in a group chat, just like a friend would. Sitch users pay for successful setups. The app offers packs of three, five or eight setups that are priced at $90, $125 or $160. According to its website, the app justifies the cost — which is higher than competitors like Tinder and Bumble — by explaining that paying users are "serious and committed to actually meeting people IRL." But Mullaji is aware that as with any tech, problems will arise. "It can go rogue with the conversation," she says of the possibilities. For example, the AI can give the wrong advice about a potential date or hallucinate the wrong details about people. "But I think these are things that we're going to be able to fix as time goes on," she adds. One plus about an AI matchmaker versus a human one, Mullaji says, is that people aren't afraid to hurt its feelings and are not filtering what they say. "They're being so incredibly truthful," she says. That honesty, Sitch asserts, helps the AI matchmaker filter for exactly what the individual dater is looking for in a relationship and in a partner. Essentially, users waste less time and money on dates with people who just don't fit the bill. They also have a better shot at finding a long-term match. There is one part of Sitch's process that is still human-driven, though. The app manually reviews new user applications, which includes a verification selfie. Sitch is live in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles and users of the app have already been on thousands of dates. Many of them report that working with an AI matchmaker has been a more positive experience compared to using a traditional dating app. James Harter, 31, used Sitch for a few months and found it effective in identifying people he'd actually enjoy spending time with. "I think every date I went on, there was a second date," he says. Harter recently met someone in-person and is not currently using the app. Karishma Thawani, 35, has been out with two different people she met on Sitch, one for two dates and the other for five dates. She intends to keep using it, because unlike the endless swiping on other dating apps, Sitch "feels more curated," she says. "I feel special when I get an introduction every week," Thawani says. "I wait for it." That kind of help and approach is "really our vision," Mullaji says. "[To] give every single person someone who can help guide them on the journey of learning about who they are, what they're looking for, finding that person, falling in love and staying in love." The company is planning to launch in Chicago and Austin by the end of 2025. "We hope that Sitch is global by 2030," Mullaji says. "That we have democratized access to having a matchmaker to help you make life's most important decision."
Business Insider
23-04-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Can AI make dating apps feel more human? This startup that's raised $2 million thinks so.
AI is fueling renewed interest in consumer tech, including online dating. Sitch, a matchmaking app that uses AI to connect singles, raised a $2 million pre-seed investment, the startup revealed exclusively to Business Insider. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz's startup accelerator, A16z Speedrun, and includes the angel round Sitch raised in 2024 from investors like Jeremy Liew, who wrote Snapchat's first check. Fresh out of Speedrun's most recent cohort, Sitch cofounders Nandini Mullaji and Chad DePue are hiring full-time engineering and growth staff, planning to expand to new cities, and introducing voice-based AI. While many dating app users feel burned out by constant swiping and rampant ghosting, and dating industry giants like Tinder and Bumble face headwinds, new startups like Sitch are trying to shake up the dating app experience. "We understand people have been burned in the past," Mullaji told BI. "We are coming in and saying, 'Hey, we have a business model shift and we have a total platform shift.'" The platform shift? AI. Sitch's AI matchmaker chatbot — built using OpenAI — is trained on the hundreds of real-life introductions Mullaji has made as a part-time matchmaker. Mullaji sees AI as a way to "democratize" the matchmaking experience (which can cost individuals thousands of dollars) and bring it "to the masses." When signing up for Sitch, users answer a slew of questions about their dating priorities, values, and backgrounds, which Sitch uses to create a profile and curate potential matches. It presents users with a maximum of five potential "setups" each week. Users have to pay up front to access the setup features. Sitch offers three tiers of packages: $90 (for three setups), $125 (for five), and $160 (for eight). Once Sitch's AI matchmaker presents users with someone it deems may be a good fit, users can ask the chatbot questions about the other person, and the AI responds using information from their respective profiles. If both parties are interested in meeting, the AI introduces the two in a group chat. However, if an introduction occurs and you get ghosted, Mullaji said you'll be refunded. Sitch manually reviews new user applications, which Mullaji said is the "one part of our process that's still completely human-driven," as a quality control and safety measure while the platform grows. AI in dating is still nascent. Other early-stage startups, like Gigi or Amori, use AI to coach singles and help curate matches. Meanwhile, larger dating apps like Tinder and Grindr have introduced AI wingman features. Can AI make dating feel more … human? "This is not about building AI girlfriends or trying to replace human contact and connection with AI," Mullaji said. Instead, she thinks AI can be used to help better connect people. To give Sitch users a more "human-like experience," it is introducing voice-based AI features, Mullaji said. Starting this week, Sitch is rolling out a voice-based AI onboarding experience for new users as the app plans to expand into more US cities. Mullaji said San Francisco and Los Angeles will be added in May, and Chicago and Washington, D.C. will quickly follow. Users will otherwise be added to Sitch's waitlist, and if a particular US city reaches "critical mass," which Mullaji defined as between 2,000 and 4,000, Sitch will begin to admit users. It will also soon expand its voice AI tools to current app users. Instead of texting the AI matchmaking agent on the Sitch app, users will be able to talk to it on the phone with feedback about setups. Voice AI tech has become a hot category among venture capitalists. In 2024, voice AI startups raised over $398 million from VCs, according to PitchBook data. Sitch is using ElevenLabs, a voice cloning AI startup that announced a $180 million Series C round with a $3.3 billion valuation in January, to clone Mullaji's voice. "We spent a lot of time recording and re-recording my voice to see how we could actually have it sound human," Mullaji said. "The one thing you do not want this to feel like is a customer support bot."
