Friendship happens in person
Turn your daily interests into real-life friendships: not superficial connections, but people you actually show up and do things with. For the people who go, and the organizers, venues and communities who make it happen, in 15 languages.
Connected, and still lonely
Hundreds of followers, and nobody to grab coffee with.
Social media promised connection and delivered feeds. Organizers juggle five tools to run one event, and local businesses have no easy way to bring people through the door. ESCAPE turns the things you already like doing into plans with real people, and gives the people who host them the tools to do it well.
From a poster to a friend
Discover what’s happening
First, browse events by category, city or vibe, from hiking groups to wine tastings to hackathons, across 12 categories.
A sample event page in the ESCAPE app: its ticket tiers with General picked, the price with fees, and Get tickets. Join and connect
Then, RSVP, buy a ticket or join a community, and chat with the organizer and the other people going before you arrive.
A guest's ticket for the sample event: its QR code to show at the door, and the buttons that add it to a wallet. Show up and belong
After that, meet people face to face, share the photos, and keep the friendships going. AI matching, scored on eight dimensions, helps you find the people you will click with.
Only on ESCAPE
- Vibe Matching
- Anonymous until mutual. Send a Vibe to someone on the same event's attendee list and choose your intent: connect, hang out, or something more. The person you vibe gets a notification that someone vibed them, but not who. If they vibe you back with a matching intent, you both find out and a chat opens. A Vibe comes with no read receipts and no rejection signal.
- AI Compatibility
- An 8-dimension scoring engine weighs interests, social proximity, location and behaviour to surface people and events you will actually like.
For the people who run it
Organizers
- Tiered tickets with their own price and capacity
- QR check-in at the door
- A revenue dashboard and CSV export
- Promo codes, waitlists and registration forms
- Seven refund policies, locked at purchase
Venues and businesses
- Claim your place on the map
- A verified badge by email or documents
- Every event at your address on your page
- Reviews, photos, hours and amenities
- Service listings with payments
Community leaders
- Groups, venues, businesses, universities, instructors
- Owner, admin, moderator and member roles
- Public, Private or Invite-only joining
- Announcements, polls and group chat
- Reports, plus bans and an activity log (coming in the next app update)
The app, screen by screen
One app for iPhone and Android, in 15 languages, and the web at web.esc-ape.ca for finding events and keeping your tickets. Every feature is on the features page.
The nights it is for
A long table, a dance floor, a hand of cards: the evenings people go out for.
We built ESCAPE because we believe the antidote to loneliness isn’t another social media app. It’s showing up in the real world.
An ape pressing ESC
We didn't start as ESCAPE. The original name was DayShare, a way to share your daily schedule and find people to do things with: turn the hours you already have into time spent with real people.
As the product grew, so did the idea. We weren't just sharing schedules. We were helping people escape: the loneliness of scrolling alone, the same thing every weekend, the surface-level connections social media calls “friends.”
The name stuck, and the logo followed: ESC + APE, an ape pressing the ESC key. Playful, a little weird, and exactly what we mean. Hit escape. Get out there. Meet someone new.
Built with support from
DMZ
#1 University-Based Incubator in North America
AWS Startups
Build Accelerator Program
Velocity
Startup Incubator, University of Waterloo
University of Waterloo
Research & Innovation Partner
University of Toronto
Research & Innovation Partner
Conrad School
School of Entrepreneurship and Business, UWaterloo
ONRamp
U of T Entrepreneurship
TheHub
Startup Community
Treefrog Accelerator
Startup Accelerator
Mitacs
Entrepreneur International
Gowling WLG
Legal Partner
Sicieeil
Strategic Investment Partner
Seen at
Collision, New York Tech Week, Toronto Tech Week
Community partners
- Comma
- Kanari
- CUPS
- Sunny Gallery
- Kuksundang
- Hallasan Soju
- EDIS
- Sinsa NYC
- Puppy Yoga Club
- Toronto Event Hub
- Toronto Dating Hub
- Simsool
- Sshwezip
- Distill Dating
- Toronto Cupid
- Ehwa
- AKCSE
- Around Nation
- UTKSA
- KCSF
- W Party
- 82 Party
More from ESCAPE
- PressCoverage, mentions, media contact
- Brand assetsLogos, colors, usage guidelines
- InvestorsTraction, thesis, contact
- CareersOpen roles at Escape Platforms
- ChangelogWhat we shipped recently
- Social archetypesAI-generated personality types
- Company eventsWhere we’re showing up
- Trust & safetyCommunity guidelines, reports
- SupportHelp center and contact
- FAQAnswers to common questions
- PricingFees for tickets and services
- BlogEssays on community and events
- FeaturesEverything the app does
- Photo creditsWho took the photographs