Dating app Dil Mil raises $2.7M in pre-Series A funding round

Dil Mil, a matchmaking app for South Asian expatriates, has raised $2.7 million (around Rs 18 crore) in pre-Series A funding from Nelstone Ventures, Transmedia Capital, Maiden Lane Ventures, CSC Upshot and a bunch of angel investors.

Naval Ravikant, founder of Angel List; Kunal Shah, founder and CEO of FreeCharge; Sameer Parwani, founder and CEO of CouponDunia; and Vijay Ullal, founder of Victory Ventures, are the angel investors who participated in this round, the startup said in a statement.

Dil Mil Inc had raised an undisclosed amount in funding from one of the founders of US-based music streaming app Saavn (South Asian Audio Video Network) in December 2015. Previously, it had raised about $1 million in seed funding from a group of angel investors including Will Bunker, founder of Match.com; Scott Banister, former PayPal board member and Ironport founder; Naval Ravikant; Rich Nelson, former managing director for M&A at IAC "the holding company for Tinder and Match; and 500 Startups.

The dating and matchmaking apps industry in India has been gaining momentum with a number of players entering the market and raising funds.

In January this year, Bangalore-based matchmaking app Aisle raised Rs 1.25 crore ($183,000) in its pre-Series A round from TermSheet and ah! Ventures.

Matrimony.com Pvt Ltd, which runs a number of matrimony-based sites, including BharatMatrimony.com, launched Matchify.com in April last year while People Group, which runs Shaadi.com, invested an undisclosed amount for a minority stake in Delhi- and Singapore-based Thrill, a mobile dating startup.

Truly Madly had raised $5.5 million in Series A from Helion Venture Partners and Kae Capital in March 2015.

In July, iCrushiFlush raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding from IDG Ventures.

Meanwhile, early this year, US-based Tinder launched its operations in India, appointing Taru Kapoor as country head.

The startup will use the funds to further build its team in addition to powering its technology infrastructure to introduce video and virtual reality dates shortly, a Dil Mil spokesperson told Techcircle.in.

Dil Mil was founded by ex-Wall Street trader KJ Dhaliwal in early 2015. A graduate of Drexel University, Dhaliwal had founded UniDevs, a website and mobile application development company, and Finantric Capital, an investment fund in the past. He has also worked with Union Metrics, McGladrey, SEI, PNC, and World Trade Financial Group in the past.

The Dil Mil app is designed for South Asian singles looking for long-term relationships. The app has a 5-second timer on viewing a user's profile picture to stop users from sharing someone's profile picture. Users can only view a number of profiles on a single day. For unlimited access, users need to subscribe to a paid model. Users can also link their LinkedIn and Instagram profiles to the app.

The app had a soft launch in the Indian market in October 2015 and is currently present in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. It claims to have made more than a million matches till now, with three marriages a week on average being finalised through the app.