Online and mobile flirting service Flirtomatic has racked up 3m users globally, and 1m in the US. The rapid adoption of Flirtomatic by US users recently enabled the company to raise $9m (£6m) in Series C funding to further grow in N. America and Europe and expand marketing efforts with partners including AT&T, MetroPCS, Cricket, and T-Mobile.

Flirtomatic enables its 3m users, who fire off 53m “flirtations” a month – discover profiles based on gender, age, location and flirting preferences. Mobile flirters can chat for free or enhance their flirting experience by promoting themselves, sending virtual gifts or mass-messages, or winking from afar to spark a conversation.

Flirtomatic also allows users to find the most popular profiles, see who has checked them out and see who is currently online and game for flirting. Flirtomatic users average six logins a day while its iPhone users check in nine times a day.

“Flirting is as much a human instinct as laughing or eating, and were creating the most fun way on Earth for people to flirt on their mobiles and the web,” says Flirtomatic CEO and co-founder Mark Curtis. “If you think about the number of people you flirt with compared to how many you date, you can quickly see why this is so popular. Were thrilled that this is now proving to be the case in the US.”