Round this time final 12 months, Cameo hit a big low level. Its valuation dropped by at least 90%, and the corporate’s dire monetary state of affairs meant it was unable to pay a $600,000 fine from the FTC.
Now, the corporate behind the superstar greeting app is exploring a brand new, albeit considerably boring, avenue for progress. On Thursday, Cameo introduced the launch of Candl, a birthday planning app designed for forgetful customers who wish to have a good time their buddies’ birthdays with out being late to the social gathering.
Candl, obtainable 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 may also see with whom you’re most appropriate primarily based in your zodiac signal.
Moreover, the app has a “Birthday Community,” so if one other Candl person 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 decide out by visiting candl.app/optout and submitting the cellphone numbers they wish to exclude.)
Candl can be planning so as to add an AI-powered function that implies reward concepts.
The app is fairly simple and might be useful for many individuals — in any case, everybody has birthdays, and many people have hassle protecting 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 formidable 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.
Information 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, world gross shopper 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 achieve sufficient traction.