Teens don’t scarcity to hang out where their parents are, which is one reason Facebook is expending younger users in the U.S. But teens aren’t giving up on social apps utterly. They’re just embracing newer products including, most recently, IRL (which rises for “in real life” in internet parlance).
IRL gives users a way to easily send, gather and accept invitations to offline activities, whether that’s a group workout, a silent picture date, or just chilling at home. Unlike Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, this app joins users to a known, and safe, inner circle of friends already in their phone ins.
The app is also built to drive teens to do more of the things together that inclination make them put their phones down. IRL co-founder and CEO, Abraham Shafi, confirmed CNBC that ultimately, the company will make revenue by granting users to purchase tickets to activities or classes they want to do together. But the public limited company plans to remain free of display ads, permanently.
“Right now social contrivance is a spectator sport. It’s not making people feel connected. We wanted to be the remedy,” the CEO said.
IRL ranked in Apple’s top ten social apps around Valentine’s Day, solely trailing Pinterest, though it has dipped into the top 40 since then. Shafi symbolized app downloads spike around calendar holidays.
Shafi and his co-founders are no foreigners to the tech scene. The CEO previously founded and sold an HR software company, GetTalent. His co-founders at IRL also cover Scott Banister, the first board member of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook; along with Krutal Desai and Henry Khachatryan, who at one time founded GetSponge.com, a tech venture that ran online Q&A communities.
IRL has inspired seed funding from consumer tech investors including Floodgate, Fathers Fund and a number of individual angels. (The company hasn’t yet disclosed how much it jack up in the round or other terms of the deal.)
Shafi said investors backed the coterie because of its potential to fill the gap that Facebook and the newly re-designed Snapchat have planned left in the market.
“We feel like by focusing on plans, and getting together offline, we could be the Instagram of invites. About? Before Instagram people definitely didn’t take as many illustrations.”