Dating is a serious game in China, with social and cultural factors dictating that, for the most part, women place equal if not more importance on material gain rather than good, old fashioned romance.

But as the country modernizes and embraces western values more, it’s no longer a game that everyone wants to play. For some, the chance of a casual encounter without any pressures or demands provides a welcome relief, but such opportunities aren’t always that easy to find.

Momo, which means “Hi Stranger” in English, is the name of a dating app that is hoping to change that, doing what it can to help those who are not looking for a serious relationship hook up with like-minded souls. Similar to services like Skout and Grindr, the app has proven to be hugely popular since its launch just over 12 months ago, accumulating more than 10 million users, of whom about 2.2 million claim to use the service on a daily basis.

Momo’s roaring success underlines the potential of this type of technology in China. While many Americans still scoff at using such apps to hook up with partners, (an attitude that wasn’t helped by the recent scandal involving paedophiles using Skout), the Chinese are embracing it at the astonishing rate of nearly one million new users a month.

Just like the services mentioned above, Momo helps strangers to discover like-minded people nearby them, so that they can chat online, meet up for coffee, go see a movie or even do ‘something’ more. Naturally, safety is always going to be an issue, but it hasn’t deterred people from using the app.

In a country where even dating sites are full of gold-diggers, and where they even stage contests among beautiful women to compete for love and riches, being able to hook up with a member of the opposite sex with absolutely no strings attached has huge appeal, so much so that Momo has just secured $40 million in funding, which it will use to further develop its service.