Finding love for up to $500,000: tech wealth turns to matchmakers instead of apps

While the big dating apps struggle for paying users, matchmakers in Silicon Valley report growing demand – driven by the wealth the artificial intelligence boom is pouring into the region. That is the picture painted by a Bloomberg feature published on 15 October, summarised by trade site Dating Industry Insights on 18 October. At its centre is Amy Andersen, who founded the agency Linx Dating in Menlo Park in 2003 and has been matchmaking in Silicon Valley for 23 years. According to her, employees of AI companies Perplexity and Anthropic and of chipmaker Nvidia are now among her clients; demand has risen sharply in recent years.

Andersen says she scouts suitable matches at events, online and on social media, drawing on a database of around 25,000 eligible singles. Her services include image consulting, professional photo shoots and coaching before and after dates; clients are aged between 20 and 75. Prices are steep: radio station KCBS cited $75,000 to $500,000 for a membership, and Business Insider reported in 2025 that Andersen works with fewer than ten people at a time. There are no independently verified price figures.

The backdrop is weakening app numbers: Tinder's paying users fell 5 percent to 8.5 million in the second quarter of 2026, according to Match Group, and 6 percent to 13.3 million across the group. Hinge, by contrast, grew – direct revenue rose 22 percent and payers 17 percent to 2 million. At Bumble, paying users fell 16.4 percent to 3.2 million; the company agreed on 13 October to be taken private by Ithaca Holdings for $1.3 billion. Dating Industry Insights notes that the trend rests mainly on matchmakers' own accounts: there is no published data showing app users switching to matchmakers.