It might be good to satisfy somebody the old school means: Passing by them on the road, assembly at a restaurant, or sharing an change at a celebration.
Nonetheless, apps dominate the modern dating experience, changing kismet meet-cutes with scrolling and DMs.
222, a startup centered on relationship constructing with the assistance of AI, thinks it might convey again the spontaneity of creating a brand new good friend — or falling in love.
“We’re making an attempt to get as shut as potential to you strolling into someplace with different folks there, and connection simply naturally occurs,” CEO Keyan Kazemian informed Enterprise Insider.
At a excessive degree, 222 matches people with strangers for experiences like dinner or an evening out after they take a sturdy character quiz, utilizing machine studying fashions educated by its workforce and open-source AI fashions.
“Whenever you stroll in, all of these persons are folks we predict you are going to have the ability to have dialog with, and you may like,” COO Danial Hashemi mentioned.
222/Screenshot/Apple
When 222 launched in 2021, it started as a dinner collection in Los Angeles for younger adults rising from the COVID-19 pandemic, serving to them meet new folks. Then the mission grew into an organization. It was accepted into Y Combinator, raised capital, moved to New York Metropolis, and launched a cellular app to spur in-real-life (IRL) socializing.
Whereas individuals who be a part of 222 are sometimes new to a metropolis, Kazemian mentioned, as we speak they’re fairly evenly cut up alongside why they’re utilizing the platform: they’re both on the lookout for new mates or potential romantic connections.
Since placing out its app in 2024, the 222 expertise has developed. It is not nearly assembly strangers, having a enjoyable evening, and forming new relationships.
“We’re very centered on going past that,” Kazemian mentioned.
The platform is now digging deeper into connecting folks after the primary encounter that 222 initiates. It is serving to plan follow-up hangs with mates and kindling a romantic connection by setting folks up on a date if the sensation is mutual.
Simulating the meet-cute
After a 222 expertise, the platform follows as much as ask attendees whether or not they wish to hang around or go on a date with anybody they met.
As soon as two folks say they’d wish to go on a date, “we totally arrange the following date for them,” Hashemi mentioned — reservation and all.
“If you concentrate on simply earlier than courting apps, earlier than all these things, how would folks meet one another?” Hashemi mentioned. “It might be you are in the identical bodily house with no preconceived notions of who this individual goes to be.”
Hashemi mentioned that among the “pleasure” of navigating how you’re feeling about somebody new in your life has “gone away due to courting apps.”
Assembly in a means that feels extra natural, equivalent to a social gathering or via mates, has endurance. A 2025 survey of seven,000 US adults by well being firm Hims discovered that 77% of Gen Z met their companions IRL. Even Partiful, the Gen Z substitute for Fb Occasions, is getting in on the IRL event-to-dating pipeline.
Sydney Bradley/Enterprise Insider
222 thinks AI could make the meet-cute extra accessible.
What 222’s founding workforce has zeroed in on is “labeled information,” Kazemian mentioned, which comes from its customers’ suggestions after they meet folks.
The startup is aware of its first pairings is probably not the final word match, which is why it encourages its subscribers — who pay $22 a month — to strive a number of experiences. Its AI, in return, can curate higher matches from 222’s community.
There are layers of things that contribute to that, 222’s CTO Arman Roshannai mentioned, equivalent to comparable music tastes or hometowns.
“The sign that we’re coaching on is after you meet this individual, you spend two hours getting dinner with them, and then you definately hang around for a couple of hours afterwards, have been you guys truly match for one another?” Roshannai added.
Kazemian added that coaching on this proprietary information from consumer suggestions is a “painstakingly tough and lengthy course of,” however provides the startup a “technical moat” to face out from some opponents.
AI’s new position in relationships
222 is not the one startup — or public firm — betting that AI can enhance how we join.
Several startups have launched with this premise and are elevating tens of millions, pitching matchmaking options that use AI to set people up. In the meantime, Bumble, Tinder, and Facebook Dating are testing the AI waters and reimagining the swipe. Hinge’s founder not too long ago left the Match Group-owned courting app to construct an AI courting different.
Sydney Bradley/Enterprise Insider
After elevating one other $10.1 million from enterprise capital buyers in 2025 — bringing the startup’s whole raised to $13.7 million — 222 is doubling down on hiring and increasing its product with instruments that hold relationships going.
222’s subsequent enterprise is to supply avenues for its customers to succeed in their “subsequent offline second” collectively, to allow them to deepen these relationships.
The startup desires to be within the enterprise of each creating relationships and sustaining them.
“They should present up on the similar place collectively,” Kazemian mentioned, be it a hangout, a date, or a restaurant reservation. “We can assist them determine what that place is.”
