Trump 2. First-year Cal student Megan Tappe is so enthused by a new Berkeley-based dating app that she recently signed up to be a brand ambassador for it.
On other dating apps, Tappe would sometimes find herself chatting with someone she matched with, who happened to be across the country.
The app, which launched officially on Feb. Hence, like Tinder and Bumble, there is swiping involved. The team has been tabling in Sproul Plaza with offers of free food and drinks to get students to download it. There were 2, active users and 2, unique sessions last week. Given that promotion so far has been confined to campus, the co-founders estimate that nearly all of the activity has been among Cal students, though student email addresses are not required to sign up.
While the team has been working on it since last July, they knew launching it during the pandemic would be a risk, as dating and going out has not yet returned to normal. The way it works is as follows: Users fill out profiles and upload a photo. But unlike the other apps, which are designed to be used while at home, Proxii is designed to be used when out.
This means that students can also use it, say, to scope out prospective matches in a lecture hall. Proxii differentiates itself from other dating apps by trying to match users as soon as possible, said Davidson. With Proxii, your likes and matches will expire in 24 hours. Davidson said the Cal population felt like the right size, and Berkeley was the right size in which to launch, but if successful, they hope to take it to San Francisco next, and then to the rest of the country, and perhaps, the world.
