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Dating -- that infuriating mating dance we humans participate in --  has just gotten easier.

At least the meeting part, anyway-- what your family will think of him or her may be an unsolvable problem.

But thanks to new services from two start-ups, Icebreaker, Inc., in Bellevue, WA, and New York-based MeetMoi LLC, lonely hearts across the country can find company - on the go -  via their cell phones.

"In the traditional dating model you go and search for someone, here you become available and other people who are around you and who are also looking for dates receive your profile on their phone," said Andrew Weinreich, founder of MeetMoi. "And that concept, I think is unique. When your phone vibrates, instead of it being a text message from someone at work or a from a friend, a picture appears on your phone and you get to decide what to do with it."

MeetMoi's service allows registered users to find dates with other members that are close by. Users text in the zip code and street address of their current location to the service and receive profiles of other date-hungry members within the given zone. Members then text those profiles they find of interest. The service costs 99 cents for 10 anonymous text messages. Registration is free.

Both companies announced rounds of funding this week. Icebreaker, Inc. received  $7.2 million in financing co-led by Frazier Technology Ventures, a Pacific Northwest venture firm and Silicon Valley's Lightspeed Ventures. The service launched in January.

MeetMoi landed $1.5 million in a first round from Acadia Woods Partners.

In Icebreaker's service, Crush or Flush, members view other member's profiles and "crush" or "flush" them. When there is an equal "crush" between two members, they are alerted to their mutual butterflies and may then send anonymous text messages to each other. Nature and social skills take it from there. Mercifully, members are not advised when they are flushed.

According to Icebreaker, Crush or Flush, which may be used on a mobile or PC/Mac, has reached 20 million monthly page views and more than 150,000 registered mobile members. The service is available through the mobile web on all cell phones, carriers and operators across the U.S.

Weinreich, the former founder of sixdegrees.com, a pioneering social networking site, said MeetMoi was not disclosing their number of users. The site launched in digital last month.

Weinreich came up with the idea partly to solve a "lack of immediacy" present in online dating sites, where emails are generally exchanged before a date is set.

"I had been on some of the online dating services, and the idea of, you write them, they right you back and three weeks later you may or may not have a date," he said.

And, just as Internet dating took off as one of the most powerful applications on the web as the public went online, Weinreich believes mobile dating will follow.

"It is it is all going to move to mobile and the thing that will go first, and the thing that will be the hottest are location-based services, things you can't do from your PC," he said. "If you want to send me a coupon for the Gap that is not as powerful as if I'm walking by the Gap and I get a coupon from the Gap, that is power. And the most powerful location-based service, I think, is dating."