Janhvi Kapoor, Vaani Kapoor, Neha Sharma are Indian members of Raya, the ‘dating app for celebs’ utilized by Ben Affleck, Channing Tatum

A celeb courting app with a ready listing within the lots of of 1000’s is rising in reputation in India. Raya, described pithily by The New York Times as ‘Illuminati Tinder’, is a members-only platform with an acceptance fee decrease than Harvard Business School. Like an Ivy League faculty, it selects, rejects and wait-lists candidates, with ready time that may stretch into weeks. It counts amongst its worldwide clientele actors reminiscent of Channing Tatum, Demi Lovato, John Mayer, Lizzo, Cara Delevingne, Sharon Stone, and the outed Ben Affleck.
Having made inroads in India, Raya has attracted celebrities reminiscent of Janhvi Kapoor, Vaani Kapoor, Neha Sharma, Sonal Chauhan, Anushka Ranjan, Lisa Mishra and a serious filmmaker who needs to stay nameless. Invite-only Raya gives exclusivity and privateness that celebrities wouldn’t discover on common courting apps reminiscent of Tinder. The app, famously ‘not for everyone’, follows a inflexible code of silence the place exposing names of different members, taking screenshots of different profiles and even tweeting about it will probably get you thrown out. The app is supposed to facilitate friendship and networking as a lot as courting.

Actor Sonakshi Sinha in a current interview with Brut was requested what her courting bio could be. She scoffed on the mere concept. “I don’t have a dating app bio,” she laughed. The interviewer swiftly moved on to his subsequent query, however Sonakshi was clearly distracted by the chance. She interrupted, “Imagine that. Imagine what would that be like, even. The amount of DMs I get on Instagram, in thousands. I can’t imagine what my dating app would look like.”
For celebrities reminiscent of Sonakshi Sinha, who has over 21 million followers on Instagram, sure issues are paradoxically out of attain. For occasion, many actors will typically admit that a part of the satan’s cut price of turning into a star is sacrificing all types of privateness. Once they’ve crossed a sure threshold of fame, their each transfer might be documented with the diligence of a weatherman monitoring an incoming storm.
But Raya, regardless of primarily being a digital VIP part of the most well liked membership on the town—or, ‘the Soho House of dating apps,’ as one individual informed the NYT in 2018—gives one factor that the wealthy and well-known want greater than the rest. Confidentiality. Launched in 2015 by Daniel Gendelman, the by-invite-only app isn’t marketed, however grows by means of phrase of mouth. As an added layer of exclusivity, it’s obtainable solely on iOS units. Of course.
Society has largely change into accustomed to the idea of social silos and closed circles. Even non-celebrities, as an illustration, are prepared to attend a few many years to get membership on the Delhi Golf Club. But on Raya, solely about 8 per cent of purposes are accepted. One individual even provided $10,000 in money to be admitted, whereas others, the Times mentioned, introduced elaborate resumes.
“I tried to solve a big problem for a small amount of people,” Gendelman informed the Times, having emerged from the woodwork after having efficiently maintained secrecy about not simply Raya’s membership, however the app itself. He conceived it, unsurprisingly, after a placing out on Tinder. But his imaginative and prescient, he mentioned, was to create considerably of a digital Davos.
Not simply film stars and musicians, the app additionally welcomes athletes, journalists, and, as Gendelman insisted, individuals who aren’t well-known in any respect. The app, he informed the Times, is ‘for passionate people anywhere in the world who have something they want to share with other members, and can do it in a respectful way.’ It prices about as a lot as one month’s Netflix subscription within the US, and requires aspiring members to use through their Instagram accounts. Raya even requires members to create a musical montage of images, which it shows, based on a 2021 New Yorker article, in an interface that’s paying homage to iMessage and AirBnb.
A screenshot of the Raya interface, as displayed on the App Store. (Photo: App Store)
But that’s the place the connections to common platforms finish. Omertà is what defines, and in the end sustains the app. Every software is vetted by a pool of current members, in a course of that may typically final years. Decisions are made on the idea of digital impressions and referrals, or, as Gendelman informed the Times, even when the applicant occurs to be ‘rad’.

Misbehaviour of any sort isn’t tolerated, and ends in the applicant being booted out with a tacit response: “Our decision is final.” The lady who outed Affleck suffered an identical destiny, as did an ‘aggressive’ man she matched with, she informed the New Yorker.
Groucho Marx, on the insistence of his mates, agreed to change into a member of an unique membership. Having determined that it wasn’t for him, he famously wrote in a letter of resignation, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” Raya is the antithesis of this concept. It stays to be seen the way it’ll work in a rustic the place celebrities spend whole careers attempting to be relatable.