In the sea of dating apps today, there’s a new sheriff in town and this one’s playing by its own rules. The League, the members-only dating app that’s spent years building an image somewhere between Soho House and LinkedIn, has finally arrived in India. It’s launching in Mumbai and Delhi with a promise to “elevate the standard” of modern dating. Translation: fewer awkward bios, more filtered ambition.

The League has always been the overachiever of dating apps. Founded in San Francisco in 2015, it was made for people who treat relationships with the same precision they bring to their quarterly goals. You don’t just sign up; you apply. You submit your LinkedIn, wait in a queue, and hope your professional headline is impressive enough to get you in. Once approved, you get a handful of curated matches per day, which feels more like a daily briefing than a dopamine scroll.

Now, after establishing itself in cities like New York, London, Paris and Sydney, The League has set its sights on India, its first stop in Asia. The launch is being pitched as the start of a high-intent dating movement, but in essence, it’s about creating a community of people who want to date within their league, literally and metaphorically.

To help with that, the app’s India rollout comes with The League Circle, a small crew of well-connected cultural types in Mumbai and Delhi tasked with seeding its first few hundred members and shaping the app’s early vibe. Think of them as the cool kids in charge of deciding who gets past the bouncer.

“The League is designed for ambitious people who know what they want,” says Anukool Kumar, Sr. Director for India and the Middle East at Match Group. It’s the kind of pitch that sounds a little intense until you remember this is the same dating ecosystem where people ghost you for not owning an air fryer.

Of course, The League has always been divisive. Critics call it elitist, while fans swear by its focus on compatibility over chaos. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, part aspiration, part algorithm. What’s clear is that it’s tapping into something new in India’s dating culture: the idea that wanting more isn’t arrogance, it’s self-respect.

Now available on iOS and Android, The League might not change how we fall in love, but it might finally make dating feel like it’s worth the effort again.