Participated · Seed · Jan 2021

S’More’s core product deliberately blurs profile photos (and initially blurs video chat) so users must interact before images fully reveal, aiming to foster more meaningful relationships. The startup recently launched a completely rebuilt app with real-time conversation prompts and a paid option to promote profiles. New features include blurred video chat and other multimedia elements on the product roadmap such as video, audio, and games. The app has seen early traction with 160,000 downloads in its first year and “thousands” of paying users, including a 50% increase in subscriptions after the January relaunch. Funding has been used to assemble a named “founding team” (chief architect, head of operations, head of product and design, senior developer). S’More is also pursuing content strategy, producing “anti-superficial” dating content and running a celebrity dating show on Instagram Live with 60 episodes so far. S’More is a relationship dating app that blurs profile photos and unlocks images and private content as users engage, prioritizing personality, values, and conversation over initial looks. Its matching algorithm recommends profiles based on location, age, sexual orientation, interests, opinions, values, hobbies, gender identities and learned attraction preferences. Profiles support more than 20 criteria with interactive icons and multimedia, and the app uses required photo verification and a publicly visible behavior-based rating score to reduce catfishing and encourage higher-quality community behavior. The company positions itself as a disruption to swipe-based dating apps and aims to elevate online dating standards toward relationship-focused experiences. S’More currently has a public waitlist of over 8,000 singles and has opened national sign-ups at smoredate.com. Founder Adam Cohen Aslatei brings experience from Chappy (Bumble’s gay app) and The Meet Group and has consulted for several social discovery companies.