Match by Memes, Not Selfies

01 /The Concept

Schmooze is a dating app with a familiar swipe mechanic – but instead of swiping on photos of other people, you swipe on memes.

Swipe left on a meme you don't like, and the next one appears. Swipe right on one that makes you laugh, and you're shown profiles of other users who liked the same meme.

From there, you can Schmooze (like) or Snooze (pass) on those profiles. If someone you liked also likes you back, you can connect inside the app and set up a date.

Each user sees 200 memes per day. Want more? Pay about 60 cents for another 200. There's a cap per day – you can't just keep buying more swipes, so you work with what you've got.

Other paid features include sending special compliments and "happiness boosts" to profiles you like. Individual purchases are available, or you can get them at a discount through a subscription.

Schmooze was founded in 2021 by Indian founders who studied in the US and initially targeted the American market. They later pivoted to focus on India, where the app took off: 1.2 million downloads and 800 million swipes in the first 10 months, leading to 200,000 dates.

The company recently closed a $4M round, bringing total funding to $7.5M.

02 /Why It Matters

The underlying problem is old: even a casual encounter goes better when you have something to talk about. Otherwise, you end up in the situation captured perfectly by a classic line: "What are we even going to talk about?"

A [related review](/review/o-chem-s-toboj-trahatsja) covered Jigsaw, another startup that tackled this problem. Their approach: hide profile photos behind puzzle pieces that gradually reveal as you exchange messages. Seven messages gets you the full picture. If the conversation dies, so does any chance of seeing who you've been talking to. Jigsaw raised $4.9M.

But the progressive-reveal mechanic is slow. It doesn't suit a generation that wants instant, frictionless interaction. The compatibility problem, though, doesn't go away.

As Schmooze's co-founder puts it: "Memes are the language of Gen Z. They're not just funny pictures – they're a window into personality." The experiment: can you match people based on meme taste instead of looks?

The technology behind the matching is more sophisticated than it sounds. An AI engine builds and continuously updates a profile of each user based on their meme history – not just finding others who liked the exact same meme, but identifying users whose overall taste patterns align. The algorithm improves over time by tracking which matched pairs actually end up going on dates.

Schmooze's ambitions appear to extend beyond dating. The founders seem to want to build a super-app for Gen Z with multiple AI-powered features, using dating as the acquisition hook. Three new AI modules are already in development:

- Genie AI – a coach that teaches users how to meet people and navigate conversations.

- Roast AI – a stand-up comedian persona users can banter with for a mood boost.

- Rant AI – an interactive journal that responds to entries with support and commentary.

The Rant AI concept strongly echoes a [recent review](/review/ne-igrushka-a-polza-i-dengi) of SocialAI – essentially a private Twitter where all your posts are commented on by AI characters with personalities you choose. Since your feed is visible only to you, you can post anything: fears, ideas, confessions. That's exactly what an interactive journal is.

03 /Opportunities

"Gen Z is the loneliest generation in human history" – raised in a digital world that erodes human connection.

That's a slide from the pitch deck of POSH ([related review](/review/pojdjom-potusuemsja)), a startup that built an app for organizing offline events, from small friend meetups to creator-fan hangouts to neighborhood gatherings. POSH's mission is to bring Gen Z back to real-world socialization. They've raised $22M to do it.

Howbout ([covered here](/review/a-teper-vse-poshli-obratno)) is attacking the same loneliness problem from a different angle – a shared calendar where you mark where you're going and when, visible to friends, so you can naturally cross paths without coordinating. Howbout has raised $13M.

Against this backdrop, dating apps are acquiring a new dimension. The goal is shifting: it used to be finding someone to hook up with who you might also talk to. Now it's finding someone worth talking to who you might also hook up with.

That shift in priorities forces the mechanics to evolve. Physical attractiveness as the primary filter is giving way to what you might call social compatibility. Schmooze is betting meme alignment is a proxy for that.

And meme-matching is presumably just one way to surface compatibility. The most productive direction is identifying other fast, low-friction compatibility signals. Meme taste is Schmooze's bet – but it's probably one of many possible proxies. The challenge is empirical: you need real match-to-date conversion data to know whether a signal predicts actual chemistry or just surface similarity.

Beyond dating, Gen Z's native formats – memes, Stories, short-form video – can be translated into contexts where they've never been used. Schmooze treats memes as a compatibility filter; the same logic could animate education, hiring, or consumer discovery.

Antimatter ([covered previously](/review/memy-vzorvut-obrazovanie)) raised $2M to explore this in education. Their platform uses memes as a learning and assessment tool. The logic: a meme is a compressed, visually native way to communicate a core idea. And to create a good meme about Schrödinger's cat, you have to actually understand Schrödinger's cat.

If one student can make the meme and another can explain it, they've both demonstrated conceptual understanding – arguably more authentically than a multiple-choice test.

Where else could memes replace old-format tools? What problems become simpler, more engaging, or more effective when the interface is meme-shaped?