• Stoke is a free, 18+ app that lets people in Miami meet for dating or friendship at partner bars, cafés and gyms.
  • A one-night pilot at five Wynwood venues comes first; Axios reported the date as Nov. 7, while Stoke's site shows Oct 24.
  • Founder Kevin Battista wants a January launch with 60 venue partners across the Miami area.
  • Venues pay Stoke to bring in customers, according to Axios.

Miami startup Stoke plans a free dating and friendship app built around members being physically inside a partner bar, café or gym, Axios Miami reported on 13 October. A one-night pilot at five Wynwood venues comes first, followed by a wider Miami launch that founder Kevin Battista wants in January.

Members create a basic profile and see a map of participating venues, with the number of users at each. On arrival they check in, choose dating or friendship, and browse others present. Chat switches on only if two people are both interested, and it disappears when a member leaves the venue, Axios said.

The DII Take

Stoke's most interesting choice is who pays. Charging venues rather than singles turns a consumer-conversion problem into a B2B sales problem, and the proof will be whether bars see enough footfall to keep paying. Real-world discovery is crowded with ideas and short on evidence that any of them scales beyond a handful of busy neighbourhoods. A pilot of five venues says very little about that.

Stoke charges venues while rivals charge singles

Axios reported that the app is free for users and venues pay to bring in customers. Match Group (MTCH) shows the opposite model at scale: in its Q2 2026 results, Tinder direct revenue was $457M, down 1%, with payers down 5% to 8.5M, while Hinge direct revenue rose 22% to $204M on payers up 17% to 2.0M.

Bumble (BMBL) has moved friendship into a standalone app, BFF, which its support page says offers one-on-one chat and Groups for planning in-person hangouts. Timeleft, which sells paid group dinners, says on its homepage that it has more than 3M members and about 720 bookings a day. Venue-paid check-in is a different format from both.

Venues pay Stoke to bring in customers, while the app is free for members.

What to watch: the date, the venues and the price

The pilot date is unsettled. Axios reported Nov. 7, but Stoke's website, viewed on 18 October, is titled for Saturday, Oct 24. DII has not confirmed which is correct with Stoke. Axios named The Sylvester, Sürenitea Wellness Kava Bar and White Elephant; Stoke's site lists only the first two, with three venues "announced soon".

Funding, team size and what venues pay were not disclosed. Battista told Axios: 'I've always been terrified to go approach people mainly because there's a stigma.' Watch turnout at the pilot and whether the 60-venue January target holds.

  • Stoke's venue-pays model removes subscription revenue from the equation, so venue retention, not payer growth, is the metric to track.
  • The 60-venue figure is a January target, not the size of the Wynwood pilot, and Stoke has disclosed no funding or venue pricing.

Sources: STOKE Wynwood event landing page (Stoke); Match Group Q2 2026 shareholder letter, Exhibit 99.2 (Match Group / SEC); Moving from the Bumble For Friends app to BFF (Bumble BFF); Timeleft homepage (Timeleft); Need a date or a friend? Miami social app hopes to spark connections (Axios Miami).