Series, a social networking app, has raised a $5.1 million pre-seed round from investors including Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail, Pear VC, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and GPTZero founder Edward Tian.
The company, founded by Yale students Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow, aims to be a next-generation social networking platform that works entirely through iMessage.
Users text a phone number (Series AI) on iMessage, explaining who they are and who they are looking to connect with. Series AI then messages the user back, offering what is called “shares”— or a carousel of 10 images that one can easily swipe through — of posts from other people also using Series AI looking to connect for a similar reason.
Each carousel card includes a person’s photo and their ask, and users can press and hold the carousel photo to start a private conversation with another user in the Series AI chat, without sharing their personal number.
The company plans to use the fresh capital to hire more engineers and expand product capabilities. After graduation, Series will stay on the East Coast and already works out of an office in Chelsea, New York.