INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Peanut, an app that began its life as a match-maker for finding new mom friends but has since evolved into a social network of more than a
million women, announced today it has closed on $5 million in new funding and is expanding its focus to reach women who are trying to
The round was led by San Francisco and London-based VC firm Index Ventures, also backers of Dropbox, Facebook and Glossier, among
others.
Other Peanut investors include Sweet Capital, Greycroft, Aston Kutcher Sound Ventures, Female Founders Fund, Felix Capital and
To date, Peanut has raised $9.8 million.
The idea for Peanut arose from co-founder Michelle Kennedy personal understanding of how difficult
it was to forge female friendships after motherhood
As the former deputy CEO at dating app Badoo and an inaugural board member at Bumble, she initially saw the potential for Peanut as a
friendship-focused matching app with swipe mechanisms similar to popular dating apps.
Over the past couple of years, however, Kennedy
realized that what women needed was more of a community space
The team then built out the app features accordingly, with the launch of its Q-A forums, Peanut Pages, last year, and more recently, with
The latter has now become Peanut main use case, with 60% of users taking advantage of the app community features and just 40% using the
friend-finding functions.
&Community is definitely becoming a very important part of what we do
It where we see the users that we deem to be power users — women who are using Peanut for hours every day — they&re very much within the
community section,& explains Kennedy
&We see that growth there and it actually guides the product
So we&re taking the behaviors that we see and letting that inform our roadmap,& Kennedy says.
Since around November 2018, Peanut has been
growing by 20% month-over-month, as more women discover Peanut private and ad-free alternative to Facebook Groups
On Peanut, users are verified (by selfies!), and people have the sorts of discussions that don&t really take place in other social
apps.
Even Kennedy admits she was surprised at first by what women were talking about in the app.
&The conversations were much, much more
personal and intimate and more related to their lives
So whether that had to do with their sex life or relationships, it was on a deeper level,& she says
&These are conversations that women simply can&t have anywhere else
Of course, they&re not happening in Facebook Groups…these are very intimate and self-reflective moments
And [women] want to do that in a private setting in a private social network,& Kennedy adds.
The new funding, in part, will be used to
grow Peanut 16-person team to 22 this year, which will then double next year.
In addition, Peanut is expanding access to women who are
trying to conceive, with the launch of the Trying To Conceive (TTC) community
This will offer a separate sign-up experience and access to a dedicated network of women, where members can candidly discuss the topic and
Within TTC, members can also create their own groups — like one for women on their fifth round of IVF, for example — to have
conversations with others who are at the same place in their journey.
The community, today, won&t point women to other fertility-focused
apps or related health services, Kennedy says, though she sees the potential for strategic partnerships further down the road
In the near-term, however, Peanut plans to generate revenue by way of the freemium model and micropayments.
&We&re incredibly excited to
partner with Michelle to grow Peanut from the essential platform for mothers it is today, to a social network for women globally
Peanut is a true companion for women, bringing them together when they need each other the most,& says Hannah Seal, principal at Index
Ventures, about the firm investment
&We&ve been impressed with the response Peanut has received since launch and look forward to supporting the team as it enters into new areas
such as fertility, and expands globally.&
&We want to shine a light on an often silent struggle
What has always been Peanut point of difference is enabling conversations women feel unable to have on any other platform
Providing a safe, inclusive space for women to discuss fertility is a natural progression for our brand as we continue to support women
throughout each life stage
No woman should ever feel lonely, isolated or muted on such an important issue,& Kennedy says.
