In July, Microsoft announced the launch of the Bing Fund, a new investment program that would offer small start up companies both funding as well as access to software and hardware from Bing and other parts of Microsoft; the Bing Fund has since announced it has added three companies.
Today, Microsoft and its Bing Fund announced its fourth startup investment and this one is a little bit different. Microsoft is helping to support a Seattle-based online matchmaking service called LikeBright; specific terms of the financial backing were not revealed.
So what makes LikeBright different than all of the other dating and matchmaking services out there? The company's press release states:
LikeBright skips the questionnaires and strangers that characterize online dating and uses data from social networks to help people meet their friends’ friends and match their friends up.
In a post on his personal blog, Bing Fund general manager Rahul Sood states that LikeBright's approach to online dating makes it better than the normal methods, adding:
In other words, you get the best of both worlds – the scale of your network to help source a match from, and the safety in trusting who’s being recommended by your friends and family. And by virtue of sourcing through social networks, the likelihood of playing on a level is higher.
LikeBright has also launched a new contest that will reward people who use the service with prizes, but it is dependent on how many of their online friends they "set up" with dates.
Source: Likebright | Image via LikeBright
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