<div id="readability-page-1" class="page"><div>[NEW YORK/SINGAPORE] AI-powered social facilitator â or friendship apps â are gaining traction with people seeking genuine, offline connections.Itâs gaining pace with people in Singapore and globally, who get together for anything from pickleball games to comedy shows. The expansion of such apps is testament to the increasing popularity, with some global businesses drawing funding rounds.Users fill out an extensive personality quiz â with a range of questions from music tastes, budgets for nights-out, to political values. Data collected allows the platform to suggest the most fitting hangouts for users to choose from â and match them with others likely to connect the best, within their gathering of choice.What began as a research project in 2021 by Keyan Kazemian, Danial Hashemi and Arman Roshannai â is now active in eight US cities, and international locations such as Toronto and London. Competition in this space is populated with other platforms such as French-based social networking app Timeleft created in 2020 â and Meet5, a German company founded in 2017 mainly tailored to users above 40. Thereâs also 222 â a social platform start-up using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to facilitate in-person meet-ups in large cities. These companies have seen global expansion in recent years, too, with Meet5 raising an 8 million euro (S$11.9 million) Series A round in September 2025. As of late-December 2025, 222 has raised a US$10.1 million Series A funding round, with an investor count of 15, according to data from CBInsights. Players across Asia have also lost no time in jumping on this bandwagon. Hong Kong-based service GenieFriends deploys AI in their attendee-matching algorithm for their social dinners, and to personalise gifts for event participants. Over in Singapore, there is AI-powered social app Â â lemonÂ â set up by founders based in the city-state. French-based Timeleft came to Singapore in June 2024 â its first key market in the Asia-Pacific region â and has a presence in over 50 countries and more than 200 cities. This includes other major Asian cities such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong. Big business for AI-powered social apps in the West is inspiring â but can Asian markets, like that of Singapore, see similar success?<h2>Tackling âbig-city lonelinessâ â with data</h2>The main selling point of AI-driven social apps is their ability to create opportunities for highly compatible, offline connections in this hyper-digital age.A 2025 report by the World Health Organisation indicated that one in six people grapple with loneliness, while highlighting how social health has a significant correlation to physical and mental health. This struggle was clear to Kazemian, co-founder and chief executive officer of 222, after his experience working at Match Group. He had seen various complaints from users of the companyâs products such as Tinder, who struggled to get to an in-person interaction via the app. The solution? A better usage and collection of data, and a machine learning algorithm to predict initial social compatibility between users, for improved âin-real-lifeâ connections. âThe more data that we get (from users), the better we are able to predict social compatibility,â said Hashemi, chief operating officer and co-founder of 222, in an interview with The Business Times. Eric San, co-founder of GenieFriends, said that user profiles are processed via OpenAIâs embeddings Application Programming Interface (API) â where lengthy profile descriptions are converted into shorter, numerical representations.Timeleft â best known for its âdinner with strangersâ concept â also uses a degree of AI solutions in their matching algorithm to plan their events, said Tu-Han Vincent-Sultan, global head of Go-To-Market of the friendship-making platform, to BT. âOur goal is to use AI to support human engagement â but never to replace it,â he said. This move appears to pay off â as retention rates on the app are âhighâ on a whole, said Kimberley Kiew, a marketing lead at Timeleft. <h2>Singapore as a key market</h2>Newer players in the social facilitator market have identified Singapore as a key location in Apac to set up their product, too. Co-founders of lemon - Nam Sunwoo, a tech product manager; Pin Chen, a Physics undergraduate student at Peking University; and AI research engineer Han Jiatong, launched their business in the Republic earlier in May 2025. The journey â which began as a community project â wasnât without challenges specific to the country, however. âThe brutal reality is that Singapore is a much smaller market (for a social app business) to be operating in, as compared to the US,â said Nam on a call with BT. Stereotypes of the city-state being âless vibrantâ than Western cities âwith less things to doâ werenât the only hurdles to overcome. The fear of âstranger danger,â which many Singaporeans may have grown up with, could easily put people off making friends via social apps, too. But such reasons also support why social apps could thrive â and fill a real need â in the Asian city, said Pin and Nam. âIt is clearly difficult to expand oneâs social circle as a young adult in Singapore, besides going for networking events or using dating apps, which often arenât ideal options,â they argue. âThis is where an app offering customised events could help.â Recent numbers appear to support this bet. lemon, in less than a year, has accumulated over 600 active users to date, and a handful of âsuperusersâ â or regular customers who attend events on a weekly basis. Their largest gathering was of 20 people â a cafe hopping trail in the Central part of Singapore. Other popular activities included a barbecue at a hostâs condominium, and pickleball games which had the most regular number of sign-ups. Singaporeans may not be that closed-off to new methods of making friends these days, too. Timeleftâs Kiew also said the Republicâs market has seen a steady rise of users since the productâs launch in the city, compared with its Apac peers. âThe (take-up rate) in Japan was a bit lowâ¦while Taiwan had the largest number of users globally one month (after we launched there). But Singapore has had consistent growth over the past year,â she added. The percentage of locals on Timeleft of users in the city-state has grown to 75 per cent in 2025 as well, from 50 per cent in the year prior. Vanessa Chew, 23, a fresh graduate from the National University of Singapore registered for a game of pickleball via an AI-powered social app, noting how the experience was a âuniqueâ one. âThe questionnaire I filled out (on the app) was very long â but it helped to match me to a group of people I connected well with, so I think it worked well for me in the end.â She did acknowledge how Singaporeans may be hesitant to try these apps in the early adoption stage, but also said how it could be a start of something new. âI think that itâs a good way for Singaporeans to forge new friendships, considering how the game (I attended) had a pretty high attendance.â Singapore as an Apac market for social facilitator apps has caught the eye of global players such as 222 as well. The US-based app is aiming to expand to the city-state by 2026, Hashemi told BT. âThere will be cultural and infrastructure differences to manage â but we are sure the core model will take off in a city like Singapore,â he said. <h2>Growth plans</h2>As competition grows in this emerging market of AI-powered social apps, the pressure is on for existing players operating in the Little Red Dot. Timeleft in Singapore, as of February 2025, operates solely on a subscription-only model, on top of diversifying from signature dinners held every Wednesday. âSome of these events include women-only dinners on Tuesdays, and drinks sessions on Thursdays,â said Vincent-Sultan. lemon, on the other hand, has implemented a S$30 curation fee per user for each moment, from December 2025. âAny kind of monetisation is to breakeven right now,â its three co-founders said. A subscription model in 2026 is a possibility for the young start-up, though the goal is to âstay sustainable,â the core team said. Expansion to other Asian cities such as Taipei and Hong Kong would be a mid-term goal, too, they noted.</div></div>

AI-powered friendship apps are gaining popularity in Singapore and globally, facilitating offline connections through activities like pickleball and comedy shows. Users complete personality quizzes to match with compatible individuals. Companies like 222 and Timeleft are expanding internationally, with significant funding rounds. The apps aim to combat loneliness, leveraging data and AI to enhance social compatibility. Singapore is seen as a key market, despite challenges like its smaller size and cultural perceptions. The goal is to support human engagement through AI, not replace it, as these platforms strive to create meaningful connections.

Pickleball, condo BBQs: Singaporeans connect via AI-powered friendship apps amid global trend