Participated · Series A · Apr 2018

East Meet East is a New York–based matchmaking service focused on connecting Asian people in the U.S. Its core U.S. product matches Asian men and women, with men paying and women using the service for free. The company is expanding into Southeast Asia and is testing a Philippines service with plans to potentially enter Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia and open local offices. The Southeast Asia offshoot, called West East Dating, is aimed at matching people of all races rather than only Asians. East Meet East is also working to enable smarter matching via an AI engine developed in partnership with DG Lab Fund; the company will provide anonymized data to help train the system. Financially, the startup raised a $4M Series A and previously raised $1M in November 2016. East Meet East operates a matchmaking-focused dating service for Asians in the U.S., available on the web and iOS with an Android app planned for early 2017. The product prioritizes romance over casual hookups and matches users via shared likes, activities and interests; the company is also developing artificial intelligence to improve match relevance. It is active in six U.S. cities and has grown its total user base three-fold over the past year. The service is free for women while men are charged $30 per month. The company has a team of 10 staff and uses influencer partnerships (e.g., Fung Brothers, David So, Linda Dong, ISATV) as a key acquisition channel. Management plans U.S. expansion over the next nine months followed by moves into Canada, Australia, the UK, Hong Kong and broader Asia. EastMeetEast is a NYC-based online dating service connecting Asians who want to date within their cultural background in the U.S. The service is free and allows singles to browse and communicate with one another. It is led by CEO and founder Mariko Tokioka, an Oxford MBA and co-founder of Quipper. The company has released its first iPhone app. EastMeetEast raised $500K in seed funding from investors including DeNA and Eureka Ventures. The company intends to use the funds to expand beyond NYC, targeting Asian-centric cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.