JigTalk

JigTalk (now rebranded as Jigsaw) flips the script on photo-obsessed dating apps by hiding your face behind a digital jigsaw puzzle that only reveals as you actually chat with matches. The concept is pretty straightforward: the more you message someone, the more puzzle pieces disappear, prioritizing personality and conversation over instant physical judgments. As we covered when the app launched, the progressive reveal mechanism uses a 16-piece puzzle to blur faces initially—a feature that earned the company a US patent in early 2021. Founded in 2016 by Alex Durrant and Max Adamski, the app started as a beta that covered entire photos based on word count before refining the concept during COVID lockdowns to focus just on faces. After becoming the first British company to graduate from NASDAQ’s Milestone Makers incubator in San Francisco, Jigsaw officially launched in London in 2019 and expanded to the US in 2021 with £2.7 million in seed funding. The Manchester-based company targets users aged 25-45 and had racked up more than 150,000 registered users across the UK and US by late 2021, also hosting in-person singles events alongside the app.