Single and over 50? Lumen promises you appy ever after

The dating app for 50-and-over singletons avoids the quick-swipe style of Tinder

It seems that 53 is the peak age for separation and divorce, according to the Central Statistics Office, and the number of separated and divorced people is rising – it has increased by 8.9 per cent between 2011 and 2016. So how does the 50-and-over singleton navigate the dating scene?

Lumen is a dating app for over-50s, co-founded by Antoine Argouges, former product manager and head of revenue at Match. com, Badoo, and Bumble, and it has just launched in Ireland.

Unlike Tinder’s reliance on minimal details and swiping right, Lumen focuses on creating detailed profiles with plenty of information and requires at least three profile pictures, which are verified by selfie. To encourage authentic conversation, users are allowed to initiate only three conversations per day, and messages disappear after 72 hours if the recipient doesn’t respond.

“Over the years people have often asked me where their single parents should be dating, and I used to genuinely struggle to find an answer. In Lumen we have created a space which embodies the values of our over-50s audience, and built the type of community we would happily recommend to our friends and parents,” says CMO Charly Lester.