Nigerian Startup Trueflutter is helping People find Compatible Partners

Nigerian dating startup Trueflutter is a social media platform that was founded in September 2018 by Dare Olatoye and Ayo Olatoye. The company uses algorithms to assist people to find compatible companions by considering their tastes and concerns.

The dating and matchmaking app assists people looking for committed relationships in finding ideal mates with comparable values and backgrounds. The app is locally-focused and is now producing over 1,000 matches every day.  

“We’ve observed the cultural norms that influence how people from our markets date and have translated these to features and filters on our mobile app”, said Ayo Olatoye. 

Trueflutter idea was born out of frustrations Ayo and his brother Dare, experienced when trying to use Westen-built dating apps in Nigeria.

“He could recognise what was missing and since no other app had it, we decided to work together and build it for our market,” Ayo said.  

Trueflutter launched a simple minimum viable product in 2019 to verify the concept and business model, but it didn’t release its full feature platform until January 2021. Premium subscriptions are how the company makes money, but it’s also working on an advertising module. Ayo describes the market need it is attempting to solve.

“Nigeria has over 200 million people. There is a huge socio-economic and cultural divide, and most people tend to date others from similar backgrounds. With regular dating apps, there is a painful trial and error process where you first have to match with a user before being able to detect whether or not you are from the same world”, he said.

“Another major gap is the lack of security features to weed out catfishers and fraudsters. We have built a unique system that lets us detect fraudsters and ban them by device ID so they are unable to create new fake accounts from the same devices”. 

Trueflutter was initially self-funded, but received $160,000 in angel capital last year to help it construct the product. Trueflutter has over 40,000 members and makes an average of 1,200 pairings every day, which is an outstanding start. Over 300,000 unique matches have been created, with two couples marrying and 20 engagement offers.

It is currently looking for further money to expand its user base beyond Nigeria.

“We have been operating predominantly in Nigeria but have a lot of organic downloads through word of mouth from Ghana, as well as Nigerians in the UK, US and Canada. Our plans are to expand to Ghana, Kenya and South Africa”, Ayo said.

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