Y Combinator-backed Betterhalf.ai raises $3 million in Pre-Series A round

(from left to right) Founders of Betterhalf.ai- Rahul Namdev, Pawan Gupta

Betterhalf.ai, the AI-driven matrimonial app, has raised $3 million in a pre-series A round. The startup was a participant in the Y Combinator W21 batch and the funding saw the participation of venture capital firms such as S2 Capital and Quiet Capital and marquee angel investors Kunal Shah and Samvit Ramadurgam.

The organisation has said the funding will be utilised to boost user engagement on the app, add monetisation features, and increase product discovery across organic channels.

Prior to this, Betterhalf.ai raised a $2.3 million seed round from Y Combinator, Tribe Capital, Nurture Ventures, and Saurabh Garg, Nobroker Founder/CBO and Shailesh Rao, Former MD of Google India and Former Partner of TPG Capital.

With the current funding, Betterhalf.ai has raised $5.2 million in total in three years of its business operations.

Thriving on the fact that it is India's first and only matrimony app without the direct involvement of parents, Betterhalf.ai features a premium pool of working professionals from more than 25,000 companies in India. Unlike the conventional matrimony apps, it focuses on behavioural matching criteria – compatibility matching with likes, dislikes, and interests.

Currently, the app facilitates over a million matches and a thousand marriages across a user base of 700K urban millennials. With extensive business plans, the app is witnessing $75,000 in monthly revenue and is growing at 30 percent every month.

It was developed in 2016 by Rahul Namdev – an MIT-educated AI expert and Pawan Gupta – a serial entrepreneur. The app is available on both iOS and Android platforms for free.

Commenting on the fundraise, Pawan Gupta, Co-founder of Betterhalf.ai said, “The closing of this round post Y Combinator Demo Day is a marker of the investors’ confidence on the readiness of 100 million urban Indians for a new age matrimony app and allows us to take the company from $1m run rate to $5m run rate for our next Series A round.”

"Betterhalf’s strategy to connect the brides and groom without parents’ intervention is what makes it super powerful and differentiated," said Saurabh Garg, Founder/CBO, Nobroker and Investor/Business Advisor, Betterhalf.ai

The company expects to touch one million users by the end of 2021.