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  • 기자명 Sally
  • Tech & Bio
  • Published 2022.11.30 11:58

Rudder Showcases Its College-Group Matching Service at SLUSH 2022: “Introducing Networking Using the ‘Pre-party’ Culture!”

Rudder.LTD (CEO Brian Bae) participated in SLUSH 2022, an event for startups held in Helsinki, Finland from November 17 (Thursday) to 18 (Friday).

Rudder and Rudder. Ltd are a British-Korean joint venture that provide the party-group matching app Rudder, designed to help students make new friends at universities. The company, which started in the UK, consists of three co-founders and 10 interns from UCL, LSE, and KCL, with in-house planning and developer expertise as well as a strong understanding of university culture in the UK. The venture’s cooperative relationships with 10 university clubs is one of its biggest strengths.

The app’s public beta version is currently being serviced in the UK for UCL, LSE, KCL, ICL, AMUL, and UAL students, and has connected more than 1,000 students and generated approximately GBP 10,000 in sales. The company raised 1.5 billion won in pre-seed funding, and is preparing for seed investments in both the UK and Korea. The venture has received awards in government-sponsored startup contests as well.

Using Rudder, students can go to parties hosted by new friends or meet new people through 3:3 get-togethers based on the pre-party or pre-drinking culture of Anglosphere universities. Users are required to verify their identity with their student emails before being matched with students from other universities. The company is hoping to expand the scope of its business to include bulk liquor purchases using the party-related information available through the app, such as the number of people coming to a party.

From the left: Leo Thevenet, CEO of Lecafedugeek, a French media outlet, and Brian Bae, CEO of Rudder│Photo-AVING News

Brian Bae, CEO of Rudder, pointing out the app's strength, said that “the service is different from other looks-first or preference-based dating apps because it facilitates matches through pre-drinking, and this sense of natural socializing is its biggest strength. In these pre-drinking get-togethers, people meet their friends' friends, and the way they get to meet students from the same university or from universities nearby creates a sense of familiarity.”

Photo of Rudder's booth at SLUSH 2022 | Photo-AVING News

“We believe we are at an advantage in the friend-matching market because we get to target the market directly ourselves. In addition, the identity verification process helps add a sense of security. We included this feature based on survey results where students responded that ‘false identity’ was one of their biggest concerns when using other friend-matching apps,” added Bae.

SLUSH is a renowned Northern European global startup exhibition, first held in 2008, where startups from all around the world meet major investors in Europe and Finland. The companies participating in SLUSH 2022 took part in promoting their companies by running the K-STARTUP Pavilion, the side event “K-STARTUP Demo Day,” and networking with professional investors using a matchmaking tool.

[Helsinki, Finland=AVING & Lecafedugeek Special Report Team – Joseph Choe, Dongkwan Kim, Mokkyung Lee, Leo Thevenet]

From the left: Leo Thevenet, CEO of Lecafedugeek, a French media outlet, and Brian Bae, CEO of Rudder, having a conversation│Photo-AVING News

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