Aisle, India’s second most downloaded dating app and a market leader in high-intent dating, has launched its vernacular dating app ‘Arike’ for Keralites residing in and out of India. Arike translates into ‘close-by’ in English and is claimed to be the first ever vernacular dating app to be made available in India.

The Aisle app connects people of Indian origin from around the world, who are looking for serious relationships. Amongst the top five grossing dating apps in India, Aisle is the only brand built by Indians and it competes with billion-dollar companies such as Tinder and Bumble.

‘Arike’ is Aisle’s first step towards building a vernacular dating landscape by offering a customised app suited to a region’s culture and habit, a spokesperson said. How love works in India is quite different from how it does in other parts of the world, she added.

This has to do with the fact that people here are very specific about faith, religion and language, among other things, before choosing a potential partner. Arike is exclusively designed for the Malayalam speaking audience between the age group of 21-40 with no geographical boundaries separating them.

It has features which are culturally specific to Keralites, starting from a logo which is inspired by the first letter of the Malayalam language icon. Everything on the app is designed to suit the local geography including typical icebreakers around food/movie choices and references to Kerala’s pop culture.

In order to re-emphasise Aisle’s value proposition of high-intent matchmaking, digital goods such as the options for free likes on Arike are made available fewer in number than with Aisle. However, members can purchase ‘notes’ and express their interest in other members by writing to them directly.

Able Joseph, Founder and CEO, Aisle said that, “We’ve been building Aisle for over six years and are the only Indian dating app to make it in the top five. Our data suggests that Kerala is among the top states which find value in high-intent dating, and that explains the launch of Arike.”

“Arike will continue to shape Aisle’s global presence as we hope to see cross-border Keralite matchmaking come to fruition. Kerala is just a start, we are planning to launch versions of Arike across India in multiple states personalised to that region’s culture and habits,” Joseph added.

Aisle recently closed its pre-Series-A funding round led by Anas Rahman, Founder and Managing Director of Hurun India, and Vinod Jose, Founder of Konglo Ventures and other angel/existing investors.

During the lockdown, Aisle had also the ‘Rooms’ on its app which allows individuals to host a virtual room and begin an audio conversation with any other interested user. Aisle has recently launched its premium feature ‘Concierge’ with an aim to offer curated matchmaking to users by browsing through a collection of handpicked profiles all in one place.

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