Social media app Yubo secures $47.5 million in a Series C funding round

Yubo, a France-based social media application that focuses on young people under the age of 25 and currently has nearly 40 million users, received an investment of $ 47.5 million in a Series C funding round. 

Idinvest Partners, Iris Capital, Alven, Sweet Capital and Gaia Capital Partners participated in the round. Jerry Murdock from Insight Partners is not investing in the company this funding round but joins the company’s board of directors.

In Yubo, which can be called a social media application that wants to reverse the current trend of social networks, it is not possible to follow other users or to like their content. The company wants to help you meet other people, play games, hang out and make new friends.

When users open the app, they get a list of rooms they can join. People can broadcast live from their phones and chat with other users. Depending on what they are looking for, users can participate in rooms of any concept. Yubo does not aim to create huge rooms like Twitch, but rather offers an environment where everyone can chat with each other.

“We had 25 million registered users in December. Today, we have more than 40 million users,” co-founder and CEO Sacha Lazimi said in a statement. 

The application has the feature to add friends even if it does not have a follow feature like Twitter or Instagram. You can add people as friends and chat with them in the app. In addition to the rooms, it is possible to find new friends by swiping left and right on the profile pages, just like on Tinder.

In Yubo, you can make in-app purchases and add additional features with subscriptions. For example; You can speed up your live stream, promote your profile on the scroll page or highlight your profile at the top of the online section. In this way, you can attract more people to your room.

Yubo, which had 25 million registered users in December, underlines that it has more than 40 million users today. The vast majority of these users are in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and France. It is stated that the number of hours spent in living rooms has increased by 400 percent year on year.

Yubo, which currently has 30 employees in Paris, London and Jacksonville, will expand its team with the new investment. The company will also open an office in New York.