Round this time final 12 months, Cameo hit a big low level. Its valuation dropped by not less than 90%, and the corporate’s dire monetary state of affairs meant it was unable to pay a $600,000 fantastic from the FTC.
Now, the corporate behind the movie star greeting app is exploring a brand new, albeit considerably uninteresting, avenue for development. On Thursday, Cameo introduced the launch of Candl, a birthday planning app designed for forgetful customers who wish to have fun their mates’ birthdays with out being late to the occasion.
Candl, out there to obtain totally free on the App Retailer, syncs birthdays out of your saved contacts and creates a birthday calendar, permitting you to see your mates’ and members of the family’ birthdays whereas receiving reminders for upcoming celebrations. For astrology followers, you too can see with whom you’re most suitable based mostly in your zodiac signal.
Moreover, the app has a “Birthday Network,” so if one other Candl consumer has entry to the identical contact however doesn’t know their birthday, the app will share the birthday info it has out of your contacts. (Customers preferring to not share their birthday info can choose out by visiting candl.app/optout and submitting the cellphone numbers they wish to exclude.)
Candl can also be planning so as to add an AI-powered characteristic that means reward concepts.
The app is fairly easy and may very well be useful for many individuals — in spite of everything, everybody has birthdays, and many people have bother preserving observe of them. However it’s form of unusual that this once-popular unicorn would select to create such a easy app to attempt to regain its fame.
Cameo is thought for extra bold initiatives, comparable to its NFT-based group providing and its pivot to content material creators. Nevertheless, regardless of these efforts, the corporate doesn’t appear to be seeing the outcomes it hoped for.
Knowledge from app intelligence agency Appfigures signifies that downloads of the Cameo app have steadily declined since their peak through the pandemic. In 2021, Cameo noticed 1.1 million app installs in comparison with 433,000 in 2022. The primary half of this 12 months marked the primary improve, at 270,000 downloads, representing a 24% rise in comparison with final 12 months’s 217,000.
Plus, within the first six months of 2025, international gross client spending within the app reached roughly $1.7 million, representing a 64% decline from round $4.7 million throughout the identical interval in 2024.
Time will reveal whether or not Candl succeeds or fails to realize sufficient traction.
