The gap does not lie in "acquaintance" but in "getting along". The "Companion Star" AI dating practice partner + real-person soul matching service helps the 240 million single population "learn to chat properly first, then get matched".
Lacking conversation skills is increasingly becoming a barrier for single people to enter real romantic relationships. "BanXing", a product launched by Shaanxi Hongtu Youcheng Network Technology Co., Ltd. in October 2026, is positioned as a friendship-oriented communication skill growth community integrating "AI dating practice partner + real-person soul matching", and is currently seeking angel round financing.
The gap lies not in "acquaintance", but in "getting along"
All of this stems from the observation of Li Ning, the founder. Data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs shows that the number of single adults in China reached 240 million in 2018, with more than 77 million people living alone. In 2025, 6.763 million pairs of marriage registrations were recorded nationwide, an increase of 657,000 pairs or 10.8% compared with 2024, but nearly halved from the peak of 13.47 million pairs in 2013.
In his research, Li Ning found that what single people lack is not channels to meet the opposite sex, but the ability to get along and communicate: a large number of single people "want to chat but do not know how to start", while traditional dating platforms only focus on matching, failing to solve the problem of maintaining conversations after meetings. AI companion products such as Xingye and Maoxiang have verified high user stickiness — according to the prospectus of MiniMax, Xingye has accumulated 147 million users, and the monthly active users of Maoxiang surged from 1.13 million to 8.98 million in 2025 — but most of these products only stay at the entertainment level, and can hardly support real social interactions. A survey conducted by Tencent Research Institute in October 2024 shows that 98% of respondents are willing to try AI social companionship. The market space is equally clear: the global AI companion market size is expected to increase from about 28.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2024 to 140.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2030, while the Chinese market is expected to grow from 3.9 billion yuan in 2025 to 59.5 billion yuan in 2028; the size of China's dating and marriage market reached 38.6 billion yuan in 2025, with a year-on-year growth of 12.8%.
Master conversation skills first, then get matched
On BanXing, users first practice chatting with multiple AI dating partners with distinct personalities — each of them has independent career, interests and unique memory, the tacit value quantifies the temperature of the relationship, and the system will take the initiative to remind users when they neglect to contact for a long time. Then users can enter the anonymous real-person matching based on chat portraits rather than appearance, with priority given to users in the same city. The system analyzes all chat records of AI and real users on a daily rolling basis without dividing sessions, and outputs a communication ability report with specific dialogues as evidence, giving targeted improvement suggestions item by item. Behind this is a unified data flywheel: two types of behavior data are imported into the rolling evaluation model, the evaluation results drive more accurate matching, and the shortcomings exposed in real-person chats are returned to the AI practice field for targeted training.
Different from Soul and Tantan, BanXing focuses on the positioning of "master conversation skills first, then get matched"; different from pure entertainment-oriented AI companions, its AI chat function is oriented to building real relationships, and the memory and growth curve of AI dating partners constitute the user migration cost.
The BanXing product has been fully developed and deployed online, which can be directly accessed via public network, covering H5 and Android terminals. All 208 back-end interface tests have been passed, and 20 AI dating partners with different personalities have been connected. Technically, it adopts a self-developed zero-dependency back-end, connects to Moonshot Kimi, the mainstream domestic large model, and controls computing power costs through model grading, cache compression and quota management. In July 2026, the Interim Measures for the Administration of Artificial Intelligence Anthropomorphic Interactive Services came into effect, and two AI companion products of miHoYo were suspended in August 2026. High computing power cost and low willingness to pay are still common bottlenecks, so cost control has become the premise for realizing large-scale services.
Prioritize scale, realize monetization after verifying user retention
In terms of business model, BanXing takes user scale as the only KPI at the current stage and does not charge temporarily. After the scale and retention are verified, it will realize monetization through paths such as computing power value-added services and advertising. Its target users are single people aged 18-35 in first- and second-tier cities, with the first-year target of 1 million registered users, and the third-year sprint target of 30 million users. For cold start, more than 500 seed users will be recruited from local universities and comment sections of social content, and the retention rate will be verified in 4 to 8 weeks, with the target of no less than 25% 7-day retention rate. In the follow-up stage, it will acquire customers through content such as "AI dating partner teaches you how to respond to conversations" on Douyin and Xiaohongshu, cooperating with campus channels and local MCNs.
According to the plan, BanXing will complete the seed user verification in the first 4 months, launch the evaluation algorithm and get the matching system fully operational in 5 to 10 months, sprint to 1 million registered users in the first year within 11 to 18 months, and start the next round of financing after the cost model is verified. In terms of the team, founder Li Ning is in charge of product development and financing. He has been deeply engaged in store informatization and local merchant services for many years, and is familiar with local political and business resources in Shaanxi. Partners in technology, operation and product design are still being recruited, and the team will expand as the milestones are achieved. This round plans to seek angel round financing of 1 million to 3 million yuan, covering 18 months of product and growth investment, of which product R&D and AI computing power account for about 60%, seed user operation and content customer acquisition account for about 25%, and compliance, legal affairs and reserve account for about 15%.
Li Ning explained his original intention of starting the business: "Many people say that single people stay single because they do not want to fall in love. But after contacting a large number of users, I found that too many people are afraid to fall in love, afraid of saying the wrong thing, afraid of messing up the relationship. Helping these people take the first step is the greatest significance of this project. To do business in an innovative track, we must first fully explore user value. When the scale grows, everything will fall into place naturally."