18. Antidate

Co-founders Mo Saha (left) and Hatty Kingsley-Miller (far-left)

With a reported 50 million users each month Tinder is king of the dating world. How does a challenger queen steal a slice of that pie?

Antidate is the new challenger on the dating app scene. Unlike Tinder, only women can make the first move, ‘flipping the rules of dating’ and putting women in control of if and when a dialogue opens. The men in this instance have to sit tight and wait.

Possibly the smallest challenger on our list with a current user base of just over 600, Antidate have a long way to go to be known as credible competitor to Tinder, although both female and male users are enthusiastic about the alternative dating experience. “The men like it because they’re suddenly not responsible for doing all the work in setting up a date,” explains Mo Saha, one of two co-founders of the challenger start-up.

“Antidate is not for everybody, but it does contain features a young, confident, social audience will love”

— Co-founder, Hatty Kingsley-Miller

A challenger’s greatest fear is not rejection but indifference, and by putting women first and appealing to a certain mindset and sensibility of dating app users, Antidate have found a unique position to occupy and can call their own.

“Antidate is not for everybody” explains Antidate's co-founder Hatty Kingsley-Miller, “But it does contain a number of features which we think a young, confident, social audience will love.”

Another shot of confidence for Antidate’s chances of success is the rise of the Bumble app across the pond, a platform that according to the founders, now initiated over 1M conversations.