The founders of Ask.fm — the popular social Q&A app that became embroiled in a cyberbullying media storm before being acquired by IAC — have backed new dating app Mint.
Through their startup builder Balaclava Lab, Ilja Terebin, Mark Terebin and Oskar Liepins have invested $1 million in the young company, which is founded by ex-Ask.fm web designer Klavs Sinka.
Launched in December, Mint is pitched as a location-based mobile dating app that helps you meet with people nearby. Its modus operandi is similar to Tinder but with one exception: users don’t need a mutual match to start messaging. Instead, the app allows for a more traditional free-for-all.
Available for iOS, with an Android version to follow, the app claims 100,000 downloads to date, with around 10,000 daily actives — the majority of which are based in Canada, Australia, Netherlands, France, Denmark, and Sweden.
“There are only few apps we count as our serious competitors: Tinder, Badoo and Happn. The rest are almost dead or never been alive,” Balaclava Lab’s Ilja Terebin tells me. “We think there are a lot of opportunities for Mint. We know how to make simple and nice products which work, so we plan to bite off a large piece of the dating pie.”
Meanwhile, Terebin describes Balaclava Lab as a startup laboratory, and will be a vehicle to create new products and invest in them using the Ask.fm founders’ own funds.
“Right now we are in the process of developing a few products already, but we don’t want to share details until we launch. We know Klavs Sinka since Ask.fm times and decided to invest in Mint as we share the vision he has on conquering the dating market,” he adds.