An oversubscribed $170M Series C round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 brings group messaging social network IRL up to $200M in funding to date. That says a lot about the expectations investors have for this two year old startup that now has unicorn status with a $1.1 billion valuation. The founders of the group social network also report 400% growth and the introduction of new features enhancing IRL’s in-app experience.
IRL Co-Founder and CEO Abraham Shafi and his team are able to boast some pretty impressive stats as the platform now coordinates two million events per day, second only to Facebook. Also, IRL users have spent over 300 million hours collectively through the app and clocked more than one billion messages sent.
The IRL team immediately recognized the immense appetite for group chats and its messaging conversations feature launched this past November during the pandemic. With over 12 million monthly active users now on its platform who appreciated that feature during the crisis, the unicorn startup is looking forward and focusing on real life social interactions post-pandemic.
Its latest Culture and Creator Fund now has over one million users throughout North America, spurred by college students embracing it last fall. The Fund helps finance local events and social activities for users in cities across the US, building on in-app experiences among family and friends—aiding in finding new ones on the latter based on shared interests. IRL announced a new Culture and Creator Fund to ignite social interaction with new expanded Group Messaging feature.
“Human beings instinctively orient themselves within groups, and with real social connection, it’s natural that we gravitate towards – and connect through – messaging tools. Our goal at IRL is to forge ahead, double down and create the future of group messaging. At a high level, the future of group messaging has deep toolsets and is wrapped in a social network,” said Shafi.
With funds from new investor Dragoneer, and returning investors Goodwater Capital, Founders Fund, Floodgate and Owl Capital who were critical in making IRL a unicorn, the founders are now building out their team and scaling it by serving its large and growing audience. This includes igniting recovery and re-storing in person social interaction as the country begins post pandemic norms again.
“People are increasingly seeking more in-person social connections and are looking to share meaningful experiences together. As an innovative event-based social network, IRL sits at the intersection of group and event discovery, social calendaring, and group messaging, enabling people to do more together,” said Serena Dayal, Director at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “We are excited to partner with Abraham and the IRL team to support their ambition of helping everyone deepen their connections to friends and family.”
Read about another Unicorn Startup passing its $1 billion valuation
