Didier Rappaport is the CEO and co-founder of Happn, the app that is turning the dating industry upside down.

After completing his secondary studies in Alsace (East of France) and an Economics degree in Bordeaux, Didier first started his career in the family textile business. He moved to Paris shortly after and created an international trade business that led him to travel all around globe – until he discovered the digital world in the 90s.

Amazed by this new world, Didier changed focus and became a web pioneer. Not forgetting his roots, he created his first B2B online service platform for the international textile industry in the early 2000s.

In 2002, Didier created his second B2B company, SourcesIT, a service platform for Internet professionals.

In 2005, Didier started a new digital adventure as co-founder and Chief Operations Officer of Dailymotion, the world’s second largest video-sharing website.

By 2008, Rappaport was looking for something new and participated in the rebuilding of Nomao, a geolocated, personalized social network that pivoted into a search engine.

Come 2013, Didier, along with co-founders Antony and Fabien Cohen, had an idea for a new generation dating app. Happn was born in 2014 and is the first dating app that starts with a real-life experience: it gives you the chance to find someone that caught your eye and to avoid all missed connections.

Two years after launching, Happn has more than 15 million users, in 40 major cities worldwide.