Peony

Who is building it

Peony is built by one person. That is not a boast and it is not an apology — but it does explain something about the app, which is that there is no growth team here whose job it is to keep you opening it.

Me

I am Danil Nemirovsky. Twenty years of experience building distributed systems, most of the last decade in financial technology, and a PhD in computer science.

Peony's hard parts are the ones I have spent a career on: moving money correctly, and making a system behave sensibly when people do not. A dating app that charges when a date happens, and puts something at stake in turning up, is mostly those two problems wearing a nicer jumper.

More on LinkedIn.

What that means for you

A one-person app is a fair thing to be wary of, so here is the honest shape of it. The things that must not depend on someone being awake — how a date is agreed, where you meet, whether turning up is checked — are built into the app rather than handled by people, and the safety page describes them. The things that do reach a person, like abuse@peony.social, reach one quickly, because there is no queue to sit in.

The company

Peony is made by Alsanthea Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales — the registered name, number and office are at the bottom of this page, and post reaches us there. General enquiries go to help@peony.social, and the support page has the rest of the addresses.

Peony launches in London at the end of October. iPhone and Android, both at once.

How safety works