Twentysomethings are abandoning swipe-based dating apps for an AI matchmaker. Allen Wang and Eric Liu dropped out of UC Berkeley to build Ditto. Their goal was to help peers connect without spending hours navigating the messiness of Tinder and Hinge.
Wang told TechCrunch that he and Liu witnessed the behavioural shift firsthand. People are getting tired of endless swiping and small talk. They want something more genuine in real life.
How the matching works
Users text their way through an onboarding process. They start with basic biographical information such as their name, gender, and birth date. Ditto then asks specific questions to understand personality, interests, and dating preferences. Some users upload photos of celebrity crushes to give the AI a sense of their type.
The algorithm matches people not based on similar hobbies. It looks at what those hobbies say about who someone is.
Wang explained the logic with an example. A guy might be into rock climbing, skydiving, and outdoor sports. A girl might like hip hop, streetwear, and skateboarding. Those hobbies do not look similar on the surface. Both are very adventurous and very individualistic. That is the core reason people will find chemistry. The claim is that chemistry is actually predictable with the right signals.
Weekly dates
Every Wednesday at 7 PM, Ditto messages users with their match for the week. The message includes the person, a time, and a location. Users simply need to show up and date each other. Ditto collects feedback about the date to improve its understanding of the user. It then sends them to a better next date.
The goal is to get people to meet. Ditto removes a lot of friction. It does the heavy lifting. Users just go there and meet whoever.
The numbers
Ditto has 150,000 signups. About 20% of the matches connected via Ditto end up going out on a date.
Ditto creates a collage-like graphic to introduce users to one another. It explains why they might be a good match. This aesthetic is popular among Gen Z. Other connection apps with young founders, like Sonder, have gravitated toward it.
Safety and funding
Safety is hard to discern when an app minimises the time between matching and going out. Is the person you are meeting really who they say they are? For now, Ditto is only available at a few dozen colleges. There is a built-in vetting process. You know someone is a student at your university with a .edu email.
Ditto is focused on figuring out how to grow to more schools. It aims to expand beyond just college while scaling safely. This is a challenging endeavour even for established and well-funded dating apps. Ditto has $9.2 million in seed funding from investors like Gradient, Peak XV, and Scribble.
Growth and culture
Wang said 99% of investors reached out through inbound channels. The team was pretty big on LinkedIn and Twitter for a bit. Duolingo co-founder Severin Hacker reached out to him. He said he loved the mission and wanted to hop on a call.
Ditto has established notoriety through irreverent marketing. Videos of robot stunts are part of this approach. Now based in San Francisco, Ditto has twelve full-time employees. It is also hiring a Chief Yacht Officer to throw promotional parties. This is a legitimate job listing.
Wang noted that users are college students. They can smell corporate marketing from a mile away. The stunts are the top of the funnel, not the product. Viral moments get college kids to look. A good first date is what makes them stay.
What it means
The model shifts the burden of filtering from the user to the system. People no longer spend hours swiping. They receive a single invitation per week. This reduces the time spent on the app and increases the likelihood of a real-world meeting. The strict college focus ensures safety without complex verification steps. The viral marketing strategy targets the specific culture of young people who reject traditional corporate branding.
