
Founded by Alex Ruber & Parth Chopra
Parth (ex Asana, ex Twitter engineer) and Alex (ex iOS/Architecture at Apple, ex flight systems at NASA), have been friends for quite a while and have built multiple projects together, including shopencore.ai, a tool to search across hundreds of resale sites in one place.
Candle is the result of everything they learned during their long stretch of pivots and side projects. It’s the first thing they have built that people not only use, they come back to daily, and a core problem that they have faced themselves. That’s what makes them excited to keep going :)
Nearly 50 percent of relationships end in a breakup or divorce. For the 140 million couples in the US, daily connection is getting harder, not because of a lack of love, but because of emotional drift, missed communication, and growing incompatibility. Careers, social media, and the relentless pace of life turn quality time into background noise. And this problem will only increase for the next generation of couples and friends.
They believe most relationships don’t end suddenly. They slowly fade from a lack of consistent emotional connection.
Candle is a private space for couples or friends to connect every day, simply and intentionally.
What started as a swipeable question game has evolved into a full platform:
Whether long distance or living together, Candle helps people create daily emotional momentum, the often overlooked key to long-term connection.
YouTube Launch Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PHArmvw4qw
They are currently at:
• 110k MAUs
• 46k DAUs
(active = someone who’s completed a card connection with their partner)