Ishaan Sethi's LGBTQ networking app offers ideal match for their community

Sethi with his team at the Delhi office

Ishaan Sethi describes himself as someone "out and proud" and also "loud" about his sexuality. It has taken long to be this way. The 27-year-old is best known today as the founder of Delta app, India's first homegrown LGBT community and networking app. For the Delhi boy, school days in DPS RK Puram were a nightmare. In the 90s, it was impossible to have a discussion on being queer. "In India, sex itself is a taboo topic, so how does one even talk sexuality?" Since the time he was in class six, Sethi started questioning his sexuality, failing to understand why he liked to look at boys, instead of girls. "I felt abnormal. And because I was also slightly effeminate, there was a lot of bullying and name calling." The bullying, in fact, got to a point where Sethi felt forced to date girls. "It made no sense, and I felt I was scamming them. But what do you know at that age?" he tells us.

That being queer is not an abnormality is something he realised when he was pursuing an Economics Major at Brown University in the US. "It is one of the most LGBTQ-inclusive campuses. I saw out and proud professors, peers; they were happy. I realised yes, you can be queer and happy." Sethi came out during his internship days at Nike in Portland. This was in 2010, and he was 19. "Nike happens to be among the biggest LGBTQ employers. I had gay coworkers, I was working in a city where no one knew me. I decided it was the perfect time and place for me to come out," he says. He came out to his immediate colleagues first, followed by his friends at Brown, then his friends back home in Delhi and finally, to his parents.

Ishaan Sethi founded the Delta app because he saw a gap in safety in the dating app market catering to the LGBTQ community. Pics/Nishad Alam

The birth of Delta
After a stint as a data analyst in New York, Sethi moved back to Delhi to give shape to his own startup, also a marketing analytics and data platform. That is when he met Sachin Bhatia, founder of MakeMyTrip and Truly Madly. "Truly Madly had disrupted the dating market in a big way with its secure features, especially for women. Sachin was inundated with requests from the LGBTQ community, who wanted something similar for themselves. Apps like Grindr, for instance, are hyper sexual and there is lack of safety. Anybody can upload your picture on a profile and approach someone. Extortion, bribery, blackmail are par for the course. There was enough room to develop an app that addressed these concerns, and made people, within the community, look beyond the picture on the profile and how far away they are." Sethi immersed himself into developing Delta, with a team of six, besides two other regional representatives in Mumbai and Bengaluru. "It was depressing to move back to India from the US. I hadn't just moved countries, I had regressed 200 years. So, I seized this opportunity to do something for the community," Sethi says.

There are several features in the app that tightens its security through a mix of automated and manual approaches. There is a feature called the trust score - someone low on it won't be able to interact as freely on the app. They also have a wide network of businesses, from small set-ups, like a bakery in Pune to large chains such as five-stars, within its purview, to ensure more safe places for the community. "That is the mission of the Delta network. We make brands take a pledge and if they don't honour the same, we discontinue partnering with them," he says.

The safety factor
Safety becomes tricky for a community that is still waiting to be recognised by the law. Sethi points out, "We as people are not illegal. Section 377 describes the act of non-vaginal penetrative sex as illegal. And that has therefore been used to persecute the queer community. The country now recognises the third gender. We have a standing joke here - you can be trans in India, provided you are celibate. Point is, Section 377 plays a larger role than in the bedroom. It's about inclusion and acceptance, it's about medical care, it's about not fearing being arrested if I go to test for HIV or STD. If the verdict does not swing in our favour, it will be a massive blow to the country. Do we really want to be a Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan?" Once out, personally for Sethi, it has been "the most incredible experience". Now, with the app, however, there is no telling between his personal life and work. "And sometimes that does get overwhelming. But I don't leave office any day without a mail from someone saying, thank you - a kid who has found a therapist or a parent who has learnt to accept. We are not a non-profit, so to realise that we are making a positive change through a business enterprise is the greatest feeling of all."

Catch up on all the latest Mumbai news, crime news, current affairs, and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates