A dating matching service that is combined with blockchain and AI (Artificial Intelligence) technologies has landed on South Korea.
Lunch Actually Group held a press conference at Plaza Hotel on the 25th and introduced ‘Viola.AI’ for the first time.
Lunch Actually Group, which is the biggest dating company in South-East Asia, accomplished 100,000 dates in the past 14 years and has more than 1.4 million people as members. It has branches in Singapore, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, Penang), Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Thailand.
‘Viola.AI’ prevents any dating scams with fake profile pictures through AI technology. It scans a face of a member with a video and compares it to a picture that is registered afterwards. It then compares the picture further with SNS accounts that are registered in Viola.AI’s application.
Through its AI engine, it connects people with similar personalities and provides a service that gives advises on dates.
Data that results from these processes are safely secured within blockchain. Also, it has formed an ecosystem that covers couple matching, community, and transactions of items through Ethereum-based tokens. A person can receive small number of cryptocurrencies as a compensation if his or her post on Viola.AI’s community was chosen as an excellent answer. These cryptocurrencies can be then used to post more questions on its community or to purchase items from partnering companies of Lunch Actually Group.
Sellers who try to advertise their products through Viola.AI’s application also have to purchase Viola tokens.
For about a month starting from the 14th of March, Lunch Actually Group carried out an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) process of Viola. One Viola token is worth about $0.20 and it can be purchased with Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Lunch Actually Group evaluated growth of South Korea’s dating market very highly. “About more than 3.3 million people in South Korea use dating apps and it is estimated that social dating market in South Korea was worth $92.8 million (100 billion KRW) in 2017 after growing more than 40% annually.” said Co-Founder Jamie Lee of Lunch Actually Group. “We saw that South Koreans pay large amount of their attention towards dating applications as they spend a lot of their time on profile pictures and others.”
Co-Founder Jamie chose Viola.AI’s life cycle as the point of difference from Facebook that is preparing a similar service. “While Facebook’s service only helps with matchings, Viola.AI can be used for life time as it provides consulting on married couples.” said Co-Founder Lee. “It also has competitive edge from the fact that it is based on blockchain technology.”
Lunch Actually Group is planning to introduce a beta application of Viola.AI by end of this year and officially launch a final version after applying feedbacks from South Koreans. Besides providing Viola.AI service, it is also preparing to establish a South Korean branch.
Staff Reporter Ham, Jihyun | goham@etnews.com