Join a Circle that matters to you — a neighborhood, a scene, an obsession. Meet people in shared contexts. No swipe grammar. No guessing who you're really talking to.
Tinder, Hinge, Bumble all start from the same primitive: a feed of strangers near you, ranked by an algorithm. Filters layer on top, but the substrate is geography. They've never worked for the way people actually meet: inside a shared context that already tells both of you something true.
Every feed begins with proximity. There's no first-class way to say "show me people in the scene I want to be part of" — only "show me people within X miles."
Photos and 300-character bios don't tell anyone who you actually are. The context you meet someone in says more than any prompt.
The swipe grammar optimizes for throughput, not compatibility. Gen Z has moved on. The incumbents haven't.
Every match that works means a user lost. Today's apps are structurally misaligned with the thing they claim to help you do.
Perch is built on one primitive: the Circle. A Circle is a place, a scene, or an interest you plug yourself into. Inside it, you're discoverable to other members. Outside, you're private. You choose where and how you're seen.
A neighborhood, a city, a zip code. Meet people in the scene you live in — or the one you're planning to move to.
A cultural or professional community. Verified by members, protected from aspirational catfishing.
A shared obsession, wherever you live. For the hobbies that can't find each other locally.
Browse the Circles already active in your area, or create your own. Free members join one Circle. Paid members join unlimited, plus unlock Visit Mode to plug into a Circle in any city — useful if you're moving, traveling, or want to meet people ahead of a relocation.
Inside your Circle, a Discovery Feed surfaces members who match your profile, upcoming Circle events, and notable activity. No swiping on strangers. Every match comes pre-qualified by shared context.
Every active Circle has IRL events: a Wednesday run, a Saturday screening, a Thursday happy hour at a venue the scene already meets at. The app is a layer on top of real communities — not a replacement for them.
LA has more distinct, self-aware cultural and professional scenes than almost any other US city. It's where the original problem we built Perch to solve — "I want to be in the circle of LA creatives, but I can't if I don't live in that scene" — is sharpest. If Perch works here, it works anywhere.
Tinder and Hinge sort by who's nearby. Raya decides who's elite. Perch lets you define the context you want to be seen in. Instead of swiping through strangers ranked by distance, you plug into a Circle — a scene you're already part of, a city you're moving to, a hobby that shapes your life. The context does the pre-qualifying work that a 300-character bio can't.
Every Circle has its own verification standard, defined by the Creator. A running Circle might require a Strava profile. A founders Circle might require LinkedIn plus a vouch from an existing member. A neighborhood Circle might require proof of residency. Membership is earned, not bought. Catfishers don't get past the verification gates, which is the point.
Perch is private by default. You're only visible inside Circles you've joined. Location data is stored at city or neighborhood granularity — never raw coordinates. Notifications are discovery-first: you see activity in an in-app feed, not as an endless stream of push alerts. Real-time push is opt-in only, capped at two per week, with quiet hours enforced by default.
Yes — with a Creator subscription. You define the Circle, set its verification standard, and moderate it. Perch's auto-suggestion engine surfaces verified candidates from the surrounding area to help seed membership. Once your Circle crosses a member threshold, you earn a revenue share on subscription revenue from members you brought in.
Private beta opens in Q2 2026 for waitlist members. Public launch in LA is Q3 2026. Second city follows in Q4 2026.
Twenty founding members. Charter status for life. Waitlist members get first access when Circles open.