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The startup raised $20 million and is launching ID today
In 2018 , I wrotea TechCrunch articlestating that 2018 was “ the year social networks were no longer social . ” Reflecting on that article , I ’m not sure that 2018 was the turning point . But the premise of the article still holds up well .
At some item , societal mesh were no longer about connecting with your closest friends , keeping up with recollective - distance family members and feel a special connection with people you love .
TikTok , Instagram , Snapchat , Facebook , YouTube and X ( formerly Twitter ) are all slow evolving to become the same infinite scrollable feed of algorithm - optimized inadequate videos from top performers .
And it turns out that I ’m not the only one who has noticed that social networks have been slow drifting away from their original purpose . Amo , a minuscule squad based in Paris , has been working for the good part of 2023 on a brand new social app calledID .
ID is a social app launching today on iOS that lets you connect with your friends in a creative elbow room . In many ways , it find like the early days of web log , Myspace ’s highly - personalized profile pages and the gold geological era of Tumblr .
But first , some context about Amo . There ’s a lot of hype and anticipation fence in Amo ’s launch , as the fellowship has been co - founded byAntoine Martin , who was the conscientious objector - founder ofZenlywithAlexis Bonillo . Zenly was a popular societal app focused on location sharing that encouraged you to spend more time with your admirer and get a line new places .
Snap spentmore than $ 200 million to take on Zenlyand kept the same team to iterate on it , as a separate app . Under Snap ’s possession , Zenly became one of Europe ’s biggest social apps of all time . At its elevation the society had 18 million different user opening the appevery Clarence Shepard Day Jr. .
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And then … it disappeared .
As part of Snap ’s cost - rationalize efforts , the company decide toshut down Zenly all . From what I ’ve heard , this move even trip discussion between French politicians at the in high spirits level and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel .
Many key member of the Zenly squad are now work at Amo . In fact , there are 10 co - beginner . In improver to Martin , Corentin Kerisit , Michael Goldenstein , Claire Pluvinage , Charly Delaroche , Julien Martin , Quentin Perez , Nicolas Fallourd , Alexis Druon and Jean - Baptiste Dalido are all Amo carbon monoxide - founders and all former Zenly mass .
The 2d reason Amo ’s launching is highly anticipated is that the inauguration closed a $ 20 million ( € 18 million ) funding round in February or March at a valuation around € 100 million withNew Waveleading the round , andCoatueandDST Global Partnersalso participating . There are also 80 angel investors on Amo ’s cap table .
This is a highly unusual funding bout , as it happened in 2023 ( during a VC funding downturn ) , Amo is a roving consumer startup ( no source of revenue for now ) and the startup did n’t have any ware out there .
An empty canvas
In 2010 , Jürgen Schweizer fromCultured Code , the company behind personal task management app Things , write a web log postshortly after Steve Jobs introduced the original iPad . In that post , he liken the iPad to an empty canvass .
“ If you want to understand what makes the iPad special , you’re able to not look at what it has , but what itdoesn’thave . The iPad is so sparse and low-cal , it becomes the display , and the presentation becomes the software . No input devices . The gimmick vanishes and turn into the app you are using . The technology is lucid , ” Schweizer wrote .
And this analogy apply peculiarly well to ID and Amo ’s work as well . There are many things that you’re able to do with ID . There are also many thing that we take for granted in a societal app that simply are n’t there .
ID is an empty canvas paired with originative tools that help you carry yourself . you could expend it to create a visibility that perfectly identify your interests in a visual manner . But there ’s a social twist as you could both see your Quaker ’ profile and add things to their own profile .
When you first create your profile on ID , you get an empty whiteboard that is waiting for cognitive content . you’re able to fill it yourself in four unlike ways .
you may add stickers from your sticker library ( more on that later on ) , you may snaffle content from your exposure depository library , you may indite text edition or you may draw . When you prefer a photo , ID automatically creates a cut - out of the primary object or subject in the picture usingPhotoRoom ’s technology .
This will feel like a shot familiar to Pinterest users who have it away to progress mood board or software developers who overlay their stigma new laptop palpebra with stickers .
Every virtual objective can be impress , resized and rotated . After a while , your profile becomes this sort of spatial canvas . you’re able to make things so little that they sort of disappear … unless you soar in .
you could produce small island that delineate what ’s on your mind right now . For instance , you may have a Los Angeles corner with the favorite buildings you saw during your vacation , mathematical group photos with your Quaker , the cup of your preferent coffee tree shop there , etc . you’re able to also have a eating house corner with photo of solid food from fancy restaurants where you ’ve latterly been .
Everything finger smooth and innate . You scroll , zoom in , zoom out , parachute from one visibility to the other . There ’s a sense of depth and distance that I ’ve never seen in any other app . Photos never feel pixelated and you do n’t finger like you ’re hold back for something to laden .
If you ’ve been using ID for a while , things can become messy — but so is life . “ And it ’s fine . My personality is helter-skelter — our personalities are helter-skelter . They ’re multifaceted and they ’re not neatly arranged in a 3×3 storage-battery grid , ” Amo CEO Antoine Martin order .
Emergent gameplay
As you pop out browsing around the app and looking at what ’s new on your friend ’ visibility varlet , you may desire to slip something for your own paries . ID lets you add subject matter from other profile to your sticker program library so that you may either add it to your own profile or put it on someone else ’s visibility .
I ’ve been using the app for a small flake more than a week , and I can already see some trends spreading around the modest residential area of beta substance abuser . you may see who originally created a sticker as it prompt around from one wall to another . Some users have put nice shelves so they can neatly categorise everything that weigh to them . A user created a guestbook section on her visibility . “ If you ’re dropping by , please pull up stakes a note here , ” she wrote .
A few video recording games rely heavily on the player ’s creativity to have playfulness , such as Minecraft or recent Zelda games . In these games , you may create your own fortress or build your own vehicle .
And that ’s also the main concept behind ID . Amo gives you the originative creature and a limitless Figma - alike canvass . Now , it ’s up to the community to figure out what they want to do with it . And the best part is that it does n’t count like any other social app out there .
peradventure Amo will end up foster a creator economy with exclusive message that can really make your visibility stand out . Maybe the caller will tot up some exchange premium lineament over time . For now , Amo want to find a hitting .
“ We ’re prioritizing scale because my goal is to produce an undestroyable company . And it ’s Zenly ’s founder who is saying that ! I used to think that 18 million [ daily active users ] would be enough to make a company indestructible . But I was wrong . I think you postulate 100 million [ daily dynamic user ] , ” Martin told me .
Curing loneliness
When the Amo team started working on ID , they wanted to find a way to cure loneliness . It seems a morsel counterintuitive to build a societal app as people spend so much metre on their earpiece already . But , according to Antoine Martin , it ’s just that existing social apps do n’t have your best interests in creative thinker .
“ The [ World Health Organization ] now telephone it the forlornness epidemic . And if they say that it ’s an epidemic , it ’s because it ’s actually infectious . In other words , if you ’re isolated , your sleep with ones are too because you ’re unreachable . So during the two hours you ’re on TikTok , they have no one to let the cat out of the bag to , ” Martin told me .
According to him , the current contemporaries of social networks are very passive . You do n’t have to do much to drop two hours on TikTok or YouTube because these troupe desire you to drop as much metre as possible in these apps . “ We aspire to go back to these early precept and make them process , ” Martin said .
That ’s also the reason why Amo does n’t want you to pass hours in the app . When you have a few minutes , you’re able to start the app to check what ’s novel on your friends ’ profiles by swiping up on the notification board .
When you ’ve reach the last card , ID point you a message that says “ get some refreshed air . ” And then , the app closes itself . You ’re back on the home screen , you may put your phone back in your pocket .
Amo & ID
ID is an opinionated take on social apps , but is it going to mould ? gift the retiring experience of the team and Amo ’s deep pockets , if there ’s one squad that has a shot at try out something radically new in the space , it ’s Amo .
“ We ’re on purpose shipping something eight or nine month after the launch of the company because we assert to ourselves that it would n’t take us a year to get started , that we ’d determine more by building in public , ” Martin said .
While ID is Amo ’s first musical theme , the companionship most likely has other ideas in the consumer social place — Amo did n’t name its app “ Amo ” after all . So it ’s croak to be interesting to follow the launch of this raw app , but also Amo ’s story as a companionship .
