Meetup’s new cell app is designed to make it simpler to satisfy folks IRL

If you happen to’re like me, it is in all probability been a scorching minute because you’ve used and even considered Meetup. Predating each Fb and Twitter, the web site, which was designed to assist folks set up in-person occasions, has modified palms a handful of instances in recent times.

In 2017, founder Scott Heiferman bought it to WeWork, which offloaded it a couple of years later earlier than declaring bankruptcy in 2023. As of 2024, Bending Spoons, the Italian tech firm that is in all probability greatest recognized for getting Evernote in 2022, has been operating Meetup.

Within the aftermath of the pandemic, the platform has seen one thing of resurgence. As of late 2025, Gen Z and younger Millennials make up 40 % of Meetup’s lively consumer base and signify its most engaged group of customers. This yr, the app has additionally seen a 20 % year-over-year improve in new registrations. Going into 2026, Bending Spoons is hoping to construct on that momentum with a redesign of Meetup’s cell app.

The brand new interface, which begins rolling out right this moment, brings the Android and iOS app inline with Meetup’s lately redesigned web site. Throughout the applying, customers can anticipate up to date fonts, new extra colourful icons and higher spacing. The aim of the redesign is to make the app “vibrant, enjoyable and extra trendy than earlier than,” says Chiara Vivaldi, Meetup’s product lead. She provides the redesigned app retains all the important thing options discovered within the earlier model, whereas making these simpler to search out. As an illustration, customers can entry their profile and teams instantly from the homepage of the app.

Past making Meetup really feel extra trendy, Bending Spoon is utilizing the redesign to cement the groundwork for a sequence of enhancements it plans to roll out within the coming months.

In accordance with Vivaldi, one main precedence is to offer folks, notably ladies, extra confidence to attend the occasions which might be listed on Meetup. Once you navigate to an occasion web page within the new app, you may see a broad gender and age breakdown of the customers who’ve signed as much as be there. Moreover, new and richer consumer profiles enable folks to get a greater sense of who precisely they may meet in the event that they resolve to go. Bending Spoons can be introducing a brand new Tremendous Organizer badge it plans to award to the platform’s prime occasion planners. It is designed to sign to customers that the one who put collectively the occasion takes neighborhood constructing critically.

Taken collectively, Vivaldi says these options are designed to cut back the friction of attending occasions the place you won’t know anybody, they usually’re one thing the corporate plans to construct on sooner or later.

On the identical time, Bending Spoons plans to make it simpler for organizers to make use of Meetup. Beginning early subsequent yr, the corporate will unify Meetup’s two disparate apps — proper now, the corporate maintains separate ones for members and organizers. Vivaldi says organizers can anticipate the unified app to incorporate all the options they rely on, alongside a handful of enhancements. As an illustration, Vivaldi’s group is working to make QR-based ticketing the norm for check-ins and attendance monitoring. She says the transfer to a single app is knowledgeable by the truth that 75 % of Meetup’s organizers obtained their begin as a member.

“[Organizers] are a part of the neighborhood. They wish to be within the motion, and so having them throughout the identical app is conducive to that. They will bounce into conversations, have a look at different occasions, making all of it really feel a bit extra natural,” Vivaldi stated. Within the meantime, if it’s been because you’ve used Meetup, you possibly can obtain the redesigned app from the App and Google Play shops.