Breakfast Club is a brand new online dating app named after that hyper-popular Nigerian slang for a breakup – to be served breakfast. A most effective euphemism that has made more people be open to discussing their breakups, and with humour, thereby making healing happen faster.

The app launches against the backdrop of the Google Trends data released last Valentine’s Day that put Nigeria as the top ranking country in the world searching for online dating apps, with the trend spanning over a decade.

This points to the fact that a great number of internet users in Nigeria and indeed Africa who are single, are seeking to put their Breakfast behind and keep searching for love.

Among them are cofounders Seunfunmi Waziri (CEO) and Oluwabukola ‘Kiki’ Ajayi (CMO), who, unsatisfied with the options available for being too oblivious to the peculiarities of finding love as an African single, have cofounded with the Bunkr team a solution that mates online dating with social networking.

This is because the team recognizes the power the ever-increasing influence of social networking on people’s lives, and believes by coopting the medium they can make online dating 10x more fun and effective for users.

Breakfast Club goes live today May 12 and is currently available on the web and on the Android Playstore, with the iOS PWA and mobile app in the pipeline.

Access is at the moment only via invitation, which is in part to help make it difficult for bad actors to get in, while also ensuring the system is not overwhelmed by a surge of new users.

And, yes, the project is super excited to announce a partnership with screen goddess & social advocate, Kate Henshaw, who will be helping distribute invite codes.

Seeking to create a platform where people seek and find serious relationships (rather than casual flings), the team found it most fitting and felt immensely honoured to have the award-winning acting legend as a brand ambassador and partner.

On the partnership, Kate Henshaw expressed optimism that Breakfast Club offers a refreshing and truly promising approach to the problem of safely finding true love on the internet. “I am really excited to be a part of the project and have high hopes that

Breakfast Club can help my single-and-searching fans safely and efficiently find friendships and love”.

For Seunfunmi, who is a serial founder with degrees in Mass Communication (first class) and Psychology plus an MBA, having Kate Henshaw onboard was a match made in paradise (pun intended).

She adds, “Like everybody loves Kate Henshaw… for her grace & her tireless dedication to excellence onscreen & off-screen. The partnership allows us the rare opportunity to draw directly from those qualities of hers towards building a truly original and world-class solution for millions”.

The team puts the same level of thoroughness in their thinking of user safety. For example, in addition to requiring an invite code, the app does not automatically admit new sign ups, but requires a wait period for users to be reviewed.

Speaking more on this bit, Kiki, an OAP and marketing guru, revealed that she had had to stay away from online dating apps majorly for safety reasons, choosing instead to only connect with people she knows through friends and family. Although the approach had narrowed her options, they widened her sense of safety. She believes there are millions of African women (and men also) like her who feel this way, and she hopes Breakfast Club also answers their prayer.

To deliver on the above, the app boasts some unique features. There is the Home feed where users can see posts by users that fall within their “spec”. These posts are called “shots”, and basically comprise a picture and a caption.

So rather than swipe left or right mindlessly to the point of error and boredom, users can scroll leisurely but purposefully to see shots that other users shoot, learn meaningful things about users that interest them, and then use the “ADMIRE” button to notify a user that they would like to connect. If an admired user admires back, the message feature becomes active and those users can chat their way to a happy ending, hopefully.

There are many more exciting and useful features to be found on Breakfast Club, informed by feedback from thousands of users who had beta-tested the app under its former name.

To share more information on the project, there would be a fireside chat in the coming days with Kate Henshaw, the founding team, and selected users from the platform which would be streamed live on Instagram and Twitter.