Facebook Matchmaking Service Thread Raises $1.2 Million

Some projects from Facebook's recent incubator program, the fbFund REV, are already beginning to “hatch,” with matchmaking startup Thread.com securing $1.2 million in funding from a number of high-profile valley investors. Thread.com is a dating site at its core, but has a number of interesting features thanks to its close integration with Facebook and the extensive use of Facebook Connect.

The idea behind the site is simple. While Facebook has no shortage of dating apps, and the Internet has no shortage of similar sites, the whole experience can feel somewhat artificial, at least at first. Where Thread stands out is with its use of Facebook Connect to come up with a set of possible matches.

Starting out is simple enough, users login with their Facebook credentials and then fill out some basic info like their age and location, after which they will be asked who they would be interested in meeting and also if they would only like to see single people. There is the option of selecting only users that are currently in a relationship, though, for those inclined.

The site then looks up your friends and the friends of your friends to come up with possible matches, retrieving information about them like interests, location, profile photos and even some photo albums, but all to the extent to which they choose to share their data. From then on, it's up to you how you wish to proceed, but Thread CEO Brian Phillips suggests asking the mutual friend to introduce you to one another. This last part is, of course, the appeal and the great advantage of the site.

It's only been launched for several weeks, but the fbFund program has been a great place for development, so the company has already secured a nice sum of funding from investment companies like First Round Capital, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, fbFund, but also a number of individual investors like Ron Conway, David Sacks, Auren Hoffman, Pedro Miguel Martins, Reid Hoffman, Joe Greenstein, Saran Chari and Shervin Pishevar.