Is online dating really still taboo in Indonesia? One matchmaking startup celebrates 5 weddings.
Setipe company dinner with newlyweds
To date, Indonesians have not been partial to the idea of online dating, as no clear winner has yet to corner the market. In Jakarta, online dating sites may have previously been seen as culturally taboo, or perhaps as grimey tools for unsavory characters.
But the archipelago's seeming aversion to finding romance online could slowly be changing, as Jakarta's anonymous internet dating site Setipe ended 2014 on a relative high note. Setipe claimed 1.7 million potential couples matched, half a million conversations facilitated, and five bona fide marriages as a result of its service. Co-founder Razi Thalib says there could be more marriages out there as a result of Setipe, but these are the only ones that he and his fellow co-founder Kevin Aluwi have discovered so far.
Setipe experienced somewhat of a slow start. The private dating portal with a rigorous matching process that drip feeds users just one match per day launched in late 2013, and was quick to secure evangelical support from Indonesian celebrity Christian Sugiono. After that, however, not much news came out about the site's progress in 2014. This was partially due to Thalib's full-time involvement with Indonesian president Joko Widodo's political campaign, which ended in victory last July.
Thalib admits that he had been ignoring the site during the election period. But in August, Setipe announced an undisclosed funding round from a group of angel investors to breath new life into the product.
See: From showbiz to tech biz: Christian Sugiono on acting, MBDC, and new investments
Thalib counts the Setipe marriages as big wins for his startup. He and Aluwi went so far as to fly one of the newly-wedded men in from West Papua, where he is currently working, to have a surprise dinner with his Jakarta-based bride and the Setipe team in late December.
Naturally, marriages can be considered a good sign for any online dating startup, but Setipe still has a long road ahead before it becomes Indonesia's universally accepted dating site. It also still has to compete with local competitors like IndonesianCupid and Jomblo (a newer player in Indonesia's online dating scene), as well as the international behemoths Match.com and eHarmony.
Setipe saw a spike in traffic between October and November, according to SimilarWeb, rising from around 60,000 monthly visitors to 130,000. During that same period, Jomblo's monthly traffic dropped from 9,000 to 6,000, and IndonesianCupid's saw a slight decrease from 300,000 to 290,000.
See more: 6 dating apps from Asia
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