Cameo’s Birthday Reminder App, Candl, Is A Weak Attempt At A Comeback

Around this clip past year, Cameo deed a important debased point. Its valuation dropped by astatine slightest 90%, and nan company’s dire financial business meant it was incapable to salary a $600,000 fine from nan FTC.

Now, nan institution down nan personage greeting app is exploring a new, albeit somewhat dull, avenue for growth. On Thursday, Cameo announced nan motorboat of Candl, a day readying app designed for forgetful users who want to observe their friends’ birthdays without being precocious to nan party.

Image Credits:Baron App, Inc.

Candl, disposable to download for free connected nan App Store, syncs birthdays from your saved contacts and creates a day calendar, allowing you to spot your friends’ and family members’ birthdays while receiving reminders for upcoming celebrations. For astrology fans, you tin besides spot pinch whom you’re astir compatible based connected your zodiac sign.

Additionally, nan app has a “Birthday Network,” truthful if different Candl personification has entree to nan aforesaid interaction but doesn’t cognize their birthday, nan app will stock nan day accusation it has from your contacts. (Users who for illustration not to stock their day accusation tin opt retired by visiting candl.app/optout and submitting nan telephone numbers they want to exclude.) 

Candl is besides readying to adhd an AI-powered characteristic that suggests gift ideas.

The app is beautiful straightforward and could beryllium adjuvant for galore group — aft all, everyone has birthdays, and galore of america person problem keeping way of them. But it’s benignant of unusual that this once-popular unicorn would take to create specified a elemental app to effort to regain its fame.

Cameo is known for much eager projects, specified arsenic its NFT-based organization offering and its pivot to contented creators. However, contempt these efforts, nan institution doesn’t look to beryllium seeing nan results it hoped for.

Data from app intelligence patient Appfigures indicates that downloads of nan Cameo app person steadily declined since their highest during nan pandemic. In 2021, Cameo saw 1.1 cardinal app installs compared to 433,000 successful 2022. The first half of this twelvemonth marked nan first increase, astatine 270,000 downloads, representing a 24% emergence compared to past year’s 217,000.

Plus, successful nan first six months of 2025, world gross user spending successful nan app reached astir $1.7 million, representing a 64% diminution from astir $4.7 cardinal during nan aforesaid play successful 2024.

Time will uncover whether Candl succeeds aliases fails to summation capable traction.