Paid conversations, safe spaces: How India is monetizing loneliness

Mukherjee, a human resources professional with a women-centric non-profit, had spent much of her adult life in Delhi. When her banker husband relocated to Bengaluru in 2024, she moved with him, along with their 11-year-old son, her mother-in-law and their dog. Her employer offered her a work-from-home arrangement, allowing her to continue in a role she had grown into over nearly two decades. Professionally, things were stable. Socially, they were not.

“My friends, my family, my entire ecosystem was back in Delhi," she said. “In Bengaluru, I was at home all day. Work conversations were agenda-driven and online. Outside of family, there was no real interaction."

Scrolling through social media one weekend, Mukherjee came across Perspectives, a Bengaluru-based initiative that organizes small, curated, in-person meetups of people seeking a real-world connection. She spoke to the founders and joined a WhatsApp group after a short screening call. The groups were capped at under 12 people. Participants paid to attend, ensuring that everyone in the room had opted in with intent.

The meetup in Yemalur, held in a private home, unfolded over pasta, avocado salad and nachos, with participants guided through structured discussions and smaller breakout conversations.

“I didn’t feel like an outsider," said Mukherjee. “People listened. There was respect."

She has since attended three more meetups. “For those three or four hours, I can be myself," she said.

Stranger meetups, everywhere

Across urban India, dozens of such social interactions are taking place through conversation circles, supper clubs, house parties, retreats and meetups. In Mumbai, for instance, 31-year-old Akshay Sahetia hosts house parties for strangers in his Chembur home. In Chennai, Krishna Rubiga and Loshini Gnanasekar, both in their 30s, organize small gatherings. In Gurugram, husband-wife duo Archit Agarwal, 30, and Natasha Ratti Kapoor, 29, run a weekend supper club out of their home. In Kolkata, 27-year-old Adi Roy curates themed evenings for people who have never met before.

These are not hobby classes or traditional clubs built around skills or long-term memberships. Attendance is capped, entry is paid, and interactions are deliberately structured. The promise is not expertise or networking, but connection. These are social experiments, and they underline one thing very clearly: India has a loneliness economy, a viable one that can be monetized.

That these initiatives are emerging now is no accident. Urban India is in the middle of a quiet social reset. Migration has intensified, families have grown more nuclear, and work has become remote or transient. At the same time, digital platforms have made “connection"abundant but shallow, leaving many people socially networked but emotionally isolated.

A recent study by Rediffusion Brand Solutions’ consumer research arm found that nearly 60% of Indians living in metros report feeling lonely. Loneliness, long treated as a private emotion, is now surfacing as a shared urban condition with real-world consequences. A June 2025 World Health Organization report linked it to over 871,000 deaths annually between 2014 and 2019. Indeed, in 2023, then US surgeon general Vivek Murthy described loneliness as an epidemic and warned that it carries health risks comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

Unshackling conversation

Social isolation is a real problem. It is more acute in Western societies, but India is getting there," said Himanshu Gupta, a 32-year-old doctor and co-founder of Perspectives.

Gupta had not set out to build a community platform. Until recently, he was working on a healthcare startup idea. But a trip with school friends to a hill station altered his thinking. A casual question about their relationships with their fathers spiralled into a three-hour conversation.

“It was very eye-opening," Gupta said. He and his friend, Raghav Kohli, an urban designer, noticed that many people around them were grappling with similar life questions around marriage, children and migration but had few spaces to talk about them meaningfully. “What if we could help make these conversations happen?" Gupta wondered.

The first experiment came in March 2025, with a meetup in Delhi titled ‘The Lost Art of Deep Conversations.’ Eleven people attended. Encouraged by the depth of exchange, Gupta and Kohli formalized the format.

Perspectives now operates through a referral-only WhatsApp community of over 1,000 members. Topics are initiated by hosts in consultation with the founders. Attendance is curated through screening calls and questionnaires. Sessions typically cost around ₹599 and ₹999 per person, with Perspectives taking a 20% commission.

Built from personal need

If the loneliness economy has a defining characteristic, it is that many of its founders did not arrive with market research or business plans. Most began by trying to solve a personal, unmet need.

Originally from Tamil Nadu’s textile hub of Tiruppur, Krishna Rubiga moved to Chennai for work in 2024 and struggled to make friends. Singles mixers felt crowded and transactional. Dating apps felt misaligned. Eventually, she turned to Bumble’s BFF mode, where she met Loshini Gnanasekar.

“We realized there was no real safe space for young people who were not from Chennai to hang out, be themselves and make friends," Rubiga told Mint.

In August, they launched Third Space by Losh and Krish as a weekend-only strangers meetup hosted in Gnanasekar’s living room. Food cooked by Gnanasekar, an information technology professional, anchors each gathering, but the evenings are structured around games and guided conversation. Earlier this December, they hosted a game night and mini-bites evening with eight attendees, charging ₹999 per head.

As they played Uno, Taboo and word games, conversations drifted from India’s education system to anxieties about caring for ageing parents. “Sometimes it can feel like group therapy," said Rubiga, who is a sustainability consultant. “People open up very quickly."

In Kolkata, Adi Roy arrived at a similar destination by a different route. After completing his education, he watched as most of his friends moved away. He stayed back, facing empty weekends. “I felt there must be more people facing the same thing," he said.

What began as informal hangouts evolved into the Awaara Community, founded in 2023. Today, it hosts a steady calendar of paid events, such as board game evenings, walk-and-talks, sports meetups, art sessions and festive gatherings, typically capped at 15-20 participants and priced between ₹300 and ₹500.

Escaping judgement

While making new friends is a recurring motivation across these initiatives, many participants describe something more specific and harder to articulate: the need for spaces where they can step away from judgement, expectation and social performance.

“Even within our close circles, we are constantly being judged," said 48-year-old Rupesh Rout, who works with a life insurance company in Bengaluru. “I wanted to escape that."

Earlier this year, Rout signed up for a four-night, five-day residential retreat in Goa organized by The Bonding Boulevard. He described it as one of the most emotionally expansive experiences he has had in years.

Founded in 2023 by Junaid Khateeb and Siddharth Rasal, The Bonding Boulevard is a travel-led community platform that has deliberately positioned itself away from tourism and wellness retreats. The retreats they design are capped at 12 to 14 participants, and priced at around ₹45,000 per person, excluding travel. Participants come from across India and span a wide age range, from people in their early 20s to those in their 60s.

The structure is deliberate. Mornings are reserved for deep conversations and personal storytelling. Afternoons involve creative or reflective activities such as art or writing sessions. Evenings are left open for music, poetry and unstructured conversations that stretch late into the night.

“There is no pressure to perform, heal or transform," said 45-year-old Khateeb, who is also an educator and corporate trainer.

Safety is not optional

If trust enables connection, safety enables trust. Across the loneliness economy, safety is not treated as a back-end concern but as the core offering. At Perspectives, participants are curated through referrals and screening calls. At The Bonding Boulevard, the locations are disclosed only close to departure, and behavioural norms are reiterated repeatedly during the multiple screening calls before participants are finalized.

Safety is particularly critical in formats that involve private homes or travel with strangers. Like Playace. Founded in 2017 by Shrinivas Shinde, Playace enables verified hosts to open their homes for curated, ticketed house parties. Over the years, it has hosted more than 6,000 parties across cities, including Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and the Delhi-National Capital Region.

“When people first hear about strangers in a private home, they are hesitant," Shinde said, hence the high focus on safety. Every host on Playace undergoes multiple layers of verification, including government ID checks, live selfie authentication, background screening and a physical verification of the house.

Guest lists are capped, addresses are disclosed only shortly before the event, and rules around consent, alcohol and behaviour are explicitly communicated. “If people don’t feel safe, they won’t come back," Shinde said. “And this model collapses."

In Mumbai’s Chembur, stock market professional Akshay Sahetia has hosted close to 100 Playace parties over the past year. He charges ₹899 per person and provides food and drinks. Playace takes a commission of around 20%. “They did Aadhaar verification, phone calls, a home visit, everything," Sahetia said. “They even decided how many people my living room could handle."

His parties are capped at 15-20 people and typically revolve around board games, karaoke or open conversations. “I set the atmosphere and then step back," he said. “My role is to make sure everyone feels comfortable and that no one crosses the line." Only once has he had to ask someone to leave.

Creating communities

While social media platforms have normalized parasocial relationships (one-sided bonds that people develop with celebrities or creators), a parallel shift is playing out offline, with communities being built around creators who initially found fame and a following online.

In Gurugram, Archit Agarwal is one such example. A former Swiggy employee, Agarwal built a 99,000-strong Instagram community around his recipes and cooking. He then started The LOST Table, a home-based supper club he co-founded with his wife, Natasha.

Each seating hosts eight guests. Dinners follow a theme, from Turkish food to seasonal menus, and are priced at around ₹3,750 per person for a four-course meal with a drink. Bookings typically fill up within a day, driven by word of mouth, a waitlist of over 1,600 people and Agarwal’s Instagram following. “People come for the food," said Agarwal. “But they stay for the people and conversations."

The couple quit their jobs in August to solely focus on The LOST Table.

Skaya operates on similar logic, but on a different scale. Founded in September 2024 by former Zomato colleagues Parnashi Chakraborty and Radhika Shubhangi, both in their 30s, Skaya positions itself as infrastructure for creators who want to take their communities offline. “There are already strong interest-based communities online," Chakraborty said. “What was missing was reliable infrastructure to take them offline meaningfully."

Partnering with Skaya allowed yoga instructor Apsara Vydyula, 32, to do something her students had been asking for repeatedly. “My students wanted retreats," she said. “But organizing accommodation, payments, transport and safety on my own would have been overwhelming."

Skaya handles logistics, payments, screening and on-ground execution. Creators focus on content. Trips are kept deliberately small, typically between eight and 12 participants, structured around shared interests. The platform currently facilitates around 10 trips a month across wellness, fitness and creative themes.

When offline is not an option

Even as offline communities proliferate in India’s largest cities, access to safe social spaces remains uneven. For many people outside metros, and for those from more conservative social backgrounds, meeting strangers in public, or even sharing a photograph online, carries a real risk.

“In Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns, the first concerns are about safety and judgement," said Bhanu Pratap Singh Tanwar, the 31-year-old co-founder and chief executive of Frnd. Launched in 2019, Frnd is an audio-first platform built around one-on-one and small-group conversations in Indic languages. Users can speak anonymously, without revealing their identity up front.

Today, the platform has around three million monthly active users, many from smaller cities and towns. What Frnd offers, Tanwar said, is not community in the conventional sense, but availability. A place where someone can log in, speak to another human being for 15-20 minutes, and leave without obligation.

The app discourages the exchange of phone numbers or social media handles, keeps conversations within the platform, and uses a mix of artificial intelligence (AI) moderation and human oversight to flag inappropriate behaviour.

For 25-year-old Siri Shyam, a Hyderabad-based user, that anonymity was crucial. She joined Frnd after the end of a long-term relationship that left her struggling with depression. Her family and friends did not know about her seven-year relationship, let alone the breakup. “I did not want to meet anyone or show my face," she said. “I just wanted someone to listen without judgement." Over time, she built a small circle she speaks to regularly, while also connecting with new users. “If I feel uncomfortable, I can leave," she said. “That makes a big difference."

Frnd follows a transaction-led revenue model, earning a commission on paid audio conversations. Tanwar said the company already has annual recurring revenue of $50 million, driven largely by small, repeated interactions rather than long sessions or subscriptions.

Not dating, by design

A clarification founders across the loneliness economy repeatedly make is that they are not running dating platforms, mixers or matchmaking services, even though many operate in the same emotional terrain.

“That is the first thing we tell people," said Playace founder Shinde. “If someone comes with the mindset of hitting on people, they are filtered out very quickly."

At retreats, the distinction is equally explicit. “People come here to work on themselves," said Khateeb. “Sometimes friendships form. Sometimes deeper bonds form. But that is a byproduct, not the objective."

Founders argue that this clarity of intent is what allows these spaces to feel safer than dating apps, where expectations are often mismatched and outcomes narrowly defined.

In an economy built on speed, choice and constant visibility, these communities are doing something countercultural. They are slowing things down. They are charging for time. They are insisting on presence. And they offer a glimpse into how urban India is finding new paths to something all human beings crave: connection.