The Inner Circle
The Inner Circle cofounders David Vermeulen (left) and Michael Krayenhoff (right).
The Inner Circle - already available in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Milan, Stockholm, and Zurich - officially went live in New York City on Thursday.
But setting up a profile on The Inner Circle isn't easy. Unlike Tinder and Happn, The Inner Circle vets you before letting you onto its platform, focusing specifically on how successful and how attractive you are.
Michael Krayenhoff, cofounder of The Inner Circle, told Business Insider: "Just like in London we'll be looking to create a close network like-minded, ambitious singles who all are in a similar stage of life and share a passion for what they do."
People in New York have been able to sign up to The Inner Circle over the last couple of months but they've only been able to access limited features.
"This seems to be going very well so far,"Krayenhoff claimed. "Already over 12,000 members signed up in NYC, with an average age of 30.4 and 98% has a Bachelors degree or higher. The most common careers are in fashion, finance and tech. Our NY database seems to be less heavy on the corporates than London, with lots of founders and creatives."
In social dating terms, The Inner Circle is a more complex, European equivalent to US app The League. In contrast to more established dating apps, where it's all about speed and getting through profiles, The Inner Circle allows people to share considerably more information about themselves beyond a short bio. People arrange meetups at high-end venues and they can let overseas members know if they're planning to visit a particular city in the near future.
For every person that's accepted onto (or into) The Inner Circle, another is turned away. The platform claims to have more than 145,000 users in total with an additional 125,000 on the waiting list.
The company said it is planning to release a new version of its app in the coming months.