Member Article

Apprentice runner-up 'proves Lord Sugar wrong' after dating app smashes crowdfunding target

DatePlay, the new dating app headed up by The Apprentice 2015 runner-up Vana Koutsomitis, has accelerated past its crowdfunding target just three days after launch.

The campaign, hosted on London-based equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs, is now overfunding by 125%, having raised £150k from 110 individual investors since Tuesday.

Based out of Berkshire, the Dateplay app analyses users’ personalities through interactive games, collating behavioural insights and providing recommendations of potential matches based on the results.

Vana actually pitched the original idea for the app on the last series of the Apprentice, but finished runner-up behind plumbing entrepreneur Joseph Valente.

Undettered, Vana forged ahead with her app and credits support from the show’s fans as motivating her to launch the crowdfunding effort this week.

After surpassing her target Vana commented: “I am absolutely thrilled that we reached our goal in less than three days! I’m so grateful to everyone who has supported me thus far, including Claude Littner and Romesh Raganathan.

“Reaching £150,000 on Seedrs further cements that people do support not only me but also the concept behind DatePlay. We’ve had so much encouragement and messages of support – which has been awesome.

“I hope that this will also inspire other women to follow their dreams to raise funds for their tech startups.”

Vana also added the the startup has placed a new overfunding target of £300k, and encouraged those interested to keep investing in the business.

She added: “We want everyone to come on board to prove Lord Sugar wrong!”

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