Time to swipe right. Tinder is starting its operations in India, the first outside the U.S., and Taru Kapoor who was previously with The Boston Consulting Group will head it. The >dating app has 1.4 billion ‘swipes’a day , 26 million matches per day and operates in 196 nations, according to the company's website.
When you tap on a profile picture on Tinder and you are interested in the person you can `swipe right.' The anonymous swipes will not let anyone know whether you are interested in the person.
If both the partners swipe right then Tinder says “It’s a match.”
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Last year, the Los Angeles-based company introduced Tinder Plus, giving users access to premium features, Rewind and Passport. In India Tinder has chosen New Delhi as its headquarters.
Exciting plans “We have exciting plans for Tinder in 2016 and having Taru on board is a step towards making India one of our core markets,” founder, Sean Rad said in a statement. “Taru’s passion for Tinder and understanding of the Indian market makes us even more confident in our plans to expand in India.”
Ms. Kapoor is a Harvard MBA graduate and was an active member of start-ups and VC community in Harvard Business School.
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She has extensive experience in business development, product and growth strategy and financial modelling and planning. She previously worked with BCG and Sequoia Capital India.
“Being part of a young brand like Tinder is both exciting and challenging,” said Ms. Kapoor, who will steer user growth and increasing engagement by focusing on local user needs.
“Tinder is already the market leader here without significant focused efforts in the past and the future potential here is astounding,” she said. Tinder will compete with in India with other dating apps such as Woo, Floh, Quack Quack, Truly Madly, Meetme, Zoosh and Grindr.
Mr. Rad is also the CEO of Tinder and its board of directors include Matt Cohler, General Partner at Benchmark, Greg Blatt, Chairman of Match Group, and Sam Yagan, CEO of Match Group.