Organize | Zheng Liyuan
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"What does a start-up company need to have if it wants to obtain 1 billion financing?"
Regarding this issue, I once said that IRL (IN REAL LIFE), the instant messaging application of Facebook, came to "explain it": it is simple, as long as you can blow it.
According to foreign media The Information, an IRL spokesperson recently said: According to the investigation results of the board of directors, 95% of the 20 million monthly active users claimed by IRL are "bots" .
What are IRLs?
Launched in 2019, IRL, whose full name is IN REAL LIFE, was originally positioned to help users discover interesting offline activities, but later under the influence of the epidemic, its positioning gradually changed to recommending online activities, such as on YouTube, Search for popular online events on platforms such as TikTok, including live broadcasts, e-sports events, and more.
By November 2020, IRL saw the huge demand for group chats and message conversations, and launched the group function, and this positioning happened to attract many young users who did not often use Facebook.
"We're building Facebook groups and events for a generation that doesn't use Facebook." Former IRL CEO and co-founder Abraham Shafi once said that groups are a key area of social networking, and "it just so happens that no other product really focuses on next generation in this field ".
Therefore, IRL was later positioned more towards a group messaging social network, and unlike other foreign group messaging social platforms (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.), IRL is more committed to hoping that users can discover new groups, Communities and events to expand their interests and passions, providing users with friendship and meaningful experiences.
According to IRL's official introduction, its social discovery network allows users to find their own communities: "People can find many organizations and interests on the IRL Explore page. Regardless of a person's personal network, they can interact in the IRL ecosystem. to a friend ."
Softbank leads the investment, IRL raises more than 200 million in financing, and vows to be the "Western WeChat"
With such characteristics, IRL said that in 2021, just two years after its establishment, the total number of users has reached 20 million, of which there are as many as 12 million monthly active users-in 15 months, the total number of IRL users has increased by 400%. In addition, IRL can coordinate 2 million activities per day, which is second only to Facebook. Users have spent more than 300 million hours on the IRL app and sent more than 1 billion cumulative messages.
Every piece of data seems to show the future of IRL full of infinite possibilities. Therefore, on June 15, 2021, IRL announced the completion of the C round of financing with a total of 170 million US dollars (about 1.2 billion yuan ) .
This round of financing was led by Softbank's "Vision Fund 2 ", and in addition to Softbank, subsequent Dragoneer, Goodwater Capital and Founders Fund also participated in this round of financing, bringing the total amount of financing to more than 200 million Dollar. It is worth mentioning that after this round of financing, IRL's valuation has directly reached 1.17 billion US dollars (about 8.4 billion RMB ) , and it has successfully entered the ranks of unicorn companies .
At that time, former IRL CEO Abraham Shafi also said: "We are building an information social network, and the big vision we want to achieve is to make IRL the WeChat of the West—a super social network for messaging ."
95% of users are 'bots', IRL is going out of business
20 million users in two years, with a valuation of 1.17 billion US dollars, becoming a unicorn company... Just pick out a Tag, which indicates an excellent development situation for any start-up company, so IRL is also "while it is hot" in 2021 Expanded in 2009, with around 100 employees at its peak.
Yet just one year later, IRL laid off about 25 employees last year. At that time, Abraham Shafi encouraged employees to "adapt" and "self-discipline" in the email, and cited WhatsApp's development to 450 million users under a team of only 55 people: "I know that not everyone will want to go the way we are going. , but for those who want to challenge their limits and discover their abilities, our culture is for you."
Under this sudden wave of layoffs, some employees began to doubt Abraham Shafi's insistence that "IRL has reached 20 million monthly active users" , and an employee was fired for researching the matter internally. The SEC has since launched an investigation into whether IRL violated securities laws in the way it described its business performance to investors.
As a result, in April this year, the IRL board of directors suspended Abraham Shafi as CEO, which seemed to imply that there seemed to be a problem with IRL's user data . 95% of them are "robots"!
An IRL spokesman said the company would close and return the remaining capital to shareholders: " Based on these findings, the majority of shareholders believe the company is not sustainable ."
Netizen : "Why is Softbank always being cheated?"
Seeing that IRL has gone from its peak to its current bankruptcy, many people in the industry who are also start-ups feel sorry for this.
▶ Sara Mauskopf, CEO of Winnie, which focuses on the childcare market, said bluntly: " To start a real business without fraud , it means that it is almost impossible to reach 'unicorn' status in a few years ."
▶ Sean Byrnes, the former CEO of Outlier.ai, also joked: "Many times before, I have been asked why my company did not grow as fast as X, and it turned out that X has always been a liar."
At the same time, IRL’s act of defrauding huge amounts of financing through falsified data has also made many netizens feel sorry for the “big injustice” Softbank (Note: Softbank’s 2021 financial report shows that the company’s investment loss for this fiscal year is about 180 billion yuan):
▶ " Why is Softbank always cheated? "
▶ "Is Softbank some kind of VC scumbag? Seems like everything they invest in is based on a handshake deal on the 'Trust Me Brother' number."
Reference link:
https://fortune.com/2023/06/25/irl-shutting-down-startup-admits-95-percent-of-messaging-app-users-were-fake/
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/26/irl-shut-down-fake-users/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36475376
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