Delfy

Delfy matched people by shared interests instead of by dating intent. It had two modes: AroundMe, which listed people nearby and let you send a message the recipient could accept or reject — a rejection removed you from each other's searches for good — and FriendMatch, an interest-based feed ranked by overlapping interests with a mutual-swipe flow before either party could message. Filters covered distance, age, gender, and whether someone was a local or a visitor, so a traveller could look for other travellers. Nino Melikidze built it with Syed Shehroz Hussain, "Ozzy" on stage, after both graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Alessandro Buononato is also credited as a co-founder. On stage Melikidze said she had lived in three countries in a few years and found it took her four to six months to build a social circle in a new city, and that dating apps and meetup apps both existed while a friends app did not. Delfy launched free on the North American iOS App Store in December 2018, sign-in was Facebook-only, there was no Android build, and the plan was to monetise through a premium tier and paid listings for local events. It was later shut down for lack of funding, and its App Store listing no longer resolves.