New Delhi, July 15 -- NEW YORK - Justin McLeod founded Hinge in 2012, spent more than a decade growing it into a legitimate competitor to Tinder, and then sold it to Match Group. In December 2025, he handed over the CEO role and left to build something he believes the app he created never quite became. The result is Overtone, an AI dating service that has raised $18 million from Match Group, FirstMark Capital, and Pace Capital, as reported by TechCrunch.

The pitch is a direct rejection of how most dating apps are built. "No opaque, algorithmic feeds trained on split-second impulses," McLeod said. "And there's no juggling likes, matches and chats across many people at once." Instead, Overtone describes itself as "a voice- and audio-forwar...