‘Sometimes private jets are involved’: Meet the woman who matchmakes for the ultra-rich
From helipads in Monaco to looking for ‘rock chick’ love interests, here’s what the wealthy want in a partner
How do you go about finding your happily ever after? Maybe you download a dating app, or go to a speed dating event. Maybe it involves going to the pub on the off-chance your eyes might meet a stranger’s over a pint.
If you’re very wealthy, though, the answer might just be to hire Ivy Relations. Or more accurately, Inga Verbeeck, its founder and CEO.
Ivy Relations bills itself as a “discreet, global dating service for high-net-worth individuals,” that prides itself on finding the perfect match for its clientele. And the market for its services is growing.
Verbeeck set up the company after a career in finance. By her late 20s, she was the CEO of a steel business in Antwerp, but was introduced to the world of matchmaking by her friends, following a divorce. As she puts it, “I got curious, I started researching”; shortly afterwards, Ivy Relations was born.
It’s come at a good time too: as people increasingly turn off from dating apps, where do they go instead? If you’re willing to invest six-figure sums in finding your life partner, the answer might be these guys.
“In the last couple of years, there’s definitely been a negative trend in [using] dating apps,” Verbeeck says. “Society in general has become less approachable, less social. [People are] looking for more personalized options, looking for something authentic, something that’s verified.”
Her company offers all of that, and more: essentially, a curated dating service that takes care of finding the perfect match for their clients, organising first dates and everything in between.
Naturally, this doesn’t come cheap, and only high net-worth individuals tend to use the service. “The majority of clients will be entrepreneurs in all kinds of industries: finance, medical, tech, anything,” she says. “Then there’s a smaller percentage, which will be some celebrities, a little bit of royalty, but it’s a minority.”
How does a traditional Ivy Relations journey go? Usually, Verbeeck says, clients come to them. What follows is a series of detailed conversations establishing what exactly clients are looking for, and if the company is a good fit for them.
From there, the matchmaking team goes on to build a detailed profile of the kind of person those clients are looking for. “[Our clients] set very high standards for themselves, for everything in their world, they will do the same for a partner. And I think that starts with physical appearance.”
As Featured in: The Standard