Meet with the girl lunchtime that is bringing to Asian urban centers

For career-focused singletons desperate for love, lunchtime relationship may be the solution.

That brainwave inspired Singapore native Violet Lim to launch Lunch really, a service that is personalized matches customers having a meal date.

“we knew instinctively that helping individuals find love is one thing that i might manage to excel in,” Lim told CNNMoney.

Fourteen years later, she says her company, the Lunch really Group, has established over 3,000 effective pairings. It now operates in six Asian urban centers with a total of 1.4 million users.

The firm’s meal Actually solution, which matches each client with a romantic date after having a consultation that is face-to-face ended up being the way the group started off. Also it stays its flagship brand name and generator that is biggest of revenue, however the company has additionally expanded into other dating services.

Esync is really a matchmaking website and application which also features input from expert consultants; Peerage is an upscale service that refines users’ profiles and goes beyond arranging very first times; and LunchClick is really a dating application that matches users via a Q&A template.

Plus the team’s project that is newest? Letting robots do the matching.

A year ago, it unveiled plans for Viola.AI, a software that makes use of artificial intelligence to help singletons find their match and blockchain technology to confirm individuals identity. It hopes to launch the service globally this season.

The towns where Lunch really currently operates are Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Jakarta and Penang.

The organization declined to touch upon its valuation. It last raised money from investors in September 2016.

‘ They were all married and busy with their jobs’

Lim said she launched Lunch really in 2004 after many years of being an agony aunt on her behalf friends — a “shoulder to cry on” for many with relationship problems.

The concept to start a dating service had started to just take form while she ended up being working as a management associate at Citibank.

“I was astonished to see that a lot of my colleagues had been solitary and never dating . Most of them were attractive and eligible,” she claims. “we knew that, like a number of other busy specialists . they certainly were all busy and hitched with their jobs.”

She african online date and her husband Jamie Lee founded the business together.

Lim speaking at the Asian Women in Leadership Summit 2016 in Singapore.

Together with the brands it created, the combined team in addition has obtained a number of other companies.

In 2015, it snapped up dating app Love Out Loud Asia and Thai dating company MeetNLunch. This past year, it bought Indonesia-based online dating platform Setipe.

In 2016, Lunch Actually set up a jv with Japanese internet dating business different Co to introduce a premium dating solution in Japan.

Despite her success, Lim says she was not “born a business owner” and could have stayed in a regular work longer if she hadn’t appear with the lunch-dating idea.

“The dating and relationships industry is certainly not simple,” she admits. “It can be hugely emotionally draining . our company is constantly coping with people’s feelings and thoughts.”

But she does not think some other company is as satisfying as hers: “I am able to make such a huge difference between an individual’s life which help them find lifelong happiness.”