Tastebuds.fm has been making waves recently with an innovative approach to dating which is a lot less run of the mill. Today it launches to investors at the Springboard accelerator programme in Cambridge, with a bid for £500,000 of Seed investment.

Users import their music profiles from last.fm, facebook or just put in some of their favourite artists. They are then shown single people who share their musical preferences. A lot less tiresome than trawling though people who might look good but are not as keen on the Smashing Pumpkins as you – and a lot more emotionally connecting.

Tastebuds is also integrated with music events website Songkick. Thus, an event Matchmaker lets you declare your intention to go to a gig and ask if anyone wants to come – a perfect dating feature.

This focus on music means that almost half of Tastebuds’ users are new to the dating market online, and one can see the appeal since music is a natural conversation starter – they claim a 33% higher response rate to opening messages than OKCupid.

The site has attracted 25,000 users/music lovers to date, 40% of whom have been active in the last month

The founders – developers Alex Parish and Julian Keenaghan – came up with idea three years ago and released a prototype last summer and have become known partly for pulling interesting stats form the dat, such as the stat that Coldplay fans are least likely to go ‘all the way’ on the first date.

A mobile app is in the planning stage and a revenue model may come in the future from premium membership, micro transactions, virtual goods (virtual roses etc).