EHarmony is making use of a profitable market with internet relationship in the usa increasing 13percent in past times year Photograph: Franck Allais/Guardian Photograph: Franck Allais/Guardian

Lonely? Solitary? Interested in love? The employer of this dating internet site eHarmony, Greg Waldorf, might just manage to help – providing you might be “values orientated”, not unduly neurotic along withn’t been hitched a lot more than three times.

A balding Californian technology that is self-confessed dressed up in a dull business suit, Waldorf, 42, seems a not likely cupid. But his web web site claims to lead to an astounding 542 weddings every day in America – nearly one out of five United States marriages. Waldorf hopes to duplicate that trick in Britain, where eHarmony launched eighteen months ago and aims become market frontrunner among paid matchmaking sites within the following 2 yrs.

Started by way of a Chicago clinical psychologist in 2000, eHarmony may be the second biggest paid-for dating internet site in the usa, behind the ubiquitous Match. ?com. In place of simply letting its users search through huge number of pages, it runs on the patented “compatibility matching system” based on a 250-question quiz that is in-depth identify prospective soulmates.

“It is a scientifically proven system that is matching’s been working incredibly well for ten years in helping people find great relationships, ” claims Waldorf. He insists that even yet in a recession, it really is well well worth paying ?34.95 per month for the opportunity to meet with the passion for your daily life: “It is well worth making a tiny investment in this region in your life as it’s very important to get a relationship that is terrific. It could seem simple nonetheless it impacts every little bit of your overall health. “

Fortune

Profitable since 2004, eHarmony’s yearly income is reported to stay in the spot of $250m while the company probably will get public over the following couple of years, netting a possible fortune for its founders and a clutch of big-name investment capital investors including Sequoia Capital, that has been an early on backer of YouTube and Yahoo, and tech Crossover Ventures, which place cash behind the travel internet site Travelport.

“the target is to be a fantastic independent business for a number of years, ” claims Waldorf. “An IPO stockmarket flotation could be a milestone as you go along that I would be thrilled to lead the business through. “

It’s milking a healthy and balanced market, in accordance with the research firm comScore which claims the viewers of dating web sites in the usa rose by 13per cent throughout the year to July, outpacing a 9% boost in overall use that is internet.

“there has been a resurgence within the year that is past” claims Andrew Lipsman, a comScore analyst, whom says increasingly advanced matchmaking software program is luring internet users straight back through the likes of Facebook and Twitter. “The sector had somewhat stagnated as websites came up. “

Nonetheless, eHarmony isn’t just everyone’s glass of tea. It defines itself, somewhat sniffily, as “a relationship site – not a dating internet site”. Its creator, Neil Clark Warren, is just a silver-haired, septuagenarian, devout Christian who at first had an alliance having a socially conservative organisation that is evangelical concentrate on the Family. Waldorf, leader since 2006, doesn’t like eHarmony being described as “conservative” but he couches its appeal in traditionalist terms, emphasising its moral fibre and stressing it’s not for casual “hook-ups”.

“Anybody who has got a bit that is little of the values orientation could have more desire for our web site, ” claims Waldorf. “But we be successful couples who originate from every angle of politics, religion. Many people are profoundly spiritual, some social folks are not spiritual at all. “

Exactly just What asian beauty dating, precisely, does he suggest by people who have a “values orientation”? Waldorf is vague: “The cliche is the fact that so that you can have values orientation you need to be politically conservative. But lots of people who are politically extremely liberal or center for the road will say merely they need a relationship partner that is someone with character, values, integrity. Somebody who’s going to look after them profoundly. I do believe that just transcends any type or form of politics. “

Until March last year, eHarmony had been a no-go area for homosexual and lesbian love-seekers – it took a high-profile lawsuit from the US gay liberties organisation to obtain eHarmony to start itself up to same-sex couplings. One activist branded the ongoin business “eNeanderthal”.

“there was clearly never ever an insurance policy choice the reason we could not, it absolutely was simply never ever market we had been in, ” claims Waldorf of this homosexual ban. He states the origins of this website’s compatibility model lay in Warren’s medical act as a psychologist, which largely revolved around heterosexual partners. “the foundation ended up being, being an inferior web site, we specialised in what we knew and that was sex that is opposite – what Dr Warren had done. “

Incompatible

With same-sex couples up to speed, eHarmony is ready to accept almost everyone over 18 – except for a couple of unlucky applicants whom get spat out from the computer. Married folks aren’t permitted, including those divided not divorced. No matter if divorced, you are banned if you have been hitched significantly more than three times by the chronilogical age of 60. And a tiny portion – Waldorf claims it really is under 1% – are judged by eHarmony’s compatibility pc software become incompatible with only about everyone. The issue, evidently, is usually neurosis.

“a vital dimension which comes up in this can be neuroticism, ” claims Waldorf. “I’m maybe not chatting just how individuals put it to use as an informal term, but as an even more term that is clinical. You can be at point inside your life where regardless of whom we might match you with, it would avoid that. It is an extreme type of situation. “

Barring neurotics, states eHarmony, would be to the benefit of the bulk that is vast of account plus the results appear to talk on their own. The internet site claims obligation for 148,311 marriages in america throughout the previous year. But that is just an estimate, according to a Harris Interactive marketing research study of simply 8,000 individuals, and eHarmony happens to be rapped because of the British Advertising Standards Authority for citing numbers that are such definitive numbers.

In Britain, eHarmony states this has signed up a million users that are registered 18 months. However the web site faces a market that is crowded in accordance with research firm Experian Hitwise, it ranks just 11th in traffic among British dating web sites, in just 1.79percent of visits. That comes even close to the free-of-charge market leader Plentyoffish, which accounted for 18% in July.

Its traffic is below a few paid-for sites – including Friends Reunited Dating and Dating Direct, not forgetting homosexual sites such as for example Gaydar. It competes with US arch rival Match.com, and Soulmates, owned by Guardian Information & Media. But armed with a financial war upper body as well as an aggressive tv strategy, Waldorf is bombastic.

“we should function as the quantity one web site where individuals come for long-term relationships, ” says Waldorf, whom came across his very own spouse the way that is traditional via a blind date put up by a buddy.

“I definitely believe into the couple that is next of, yes, we could overtake them to be the main. “