irl

Remembering the startups we lost in 2023

Not every startup collapse is an FTX or Theranos. They don’t all burn so brightly and explode so spectacularly. More often than not, there won’t be some high-profile court case and prison time. Am

IRL founders allege investors sabotaged company with fake users claims

The founders of IRL, Abraham Shafi and Genrikh Khachatryan, are suing their investors, claiming that they intentionally sabotaged the company. At its peak, IRL was poised to become an event organizing

SoftBank sues IRL over ‘elaborate scheme’ that swallowed $150M

SoftBank once invested in social app IRL at a $1.1 billion valuation. Now, the Japanese investment firm is suing the defunct company for fraud, alleging $150 million in damages. IRL was supposedly poi

Unicorn social app IRL to shut down after admitting 95% of its users were fake

Ironically, the social app IRL‘s users do not exist in real life. An internal investigation by IRL’s board of directors found that 95% of the app’s reported 20 million users were &#8

Crypto ticks higher, fintech gets interesting again and fraud is still bad

Hello and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. All the cool kids are filling out the Equity listener surve

Social app IRL lays off 25% of team, says it has enough cash to last well into 2024

“We have all seen the state of the market,” IRL CEO and co-founder Abraham Shafi wrote in a company-wide memo where the social app announced it would be dramatically cutting staff. Similar to doze

Social app IRL makes its first acquisition with deal for digital nutrition company AeBeZe Labs

IRL, the SoftBank-backed social app and recent unicorn, is today announcing its first acquisition. The company is purchasing, for an undisclosed sum, the “digital nutrition” company AeBeZe

Messaging social network IRL hits unicorn status with SoftBank-led $170M Series C

Social calendar app IRL has been busy building a messaging-based social network, or what founder and CEO Abraham Shafi calls a “WeChat of the West.” Following its pandemic-fueled growth an

Now with over 10M monthly users, IRL turns its events website into a social network

Following its $16 million Series B last fall, event discovery network IRL is launching a new website that adds more social features around events, including profiles, chats and the ability to join gro

Event discovery network IRL raises $16M Series B after refocusing on virtual events

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the way a number of companies have had to do business. For the event discovery startup, IRL, it meant pivoting into the virtual events space. This April, the startup qui

IRL, the calendar app for virtual events, launches a web product

IRL, the recently pivoted calendar app that aggregates live virtual events, has today launched a web version of the platform. The company, which has $11 million in funding from Goodwater Capital, Foun

IRL pivots into virtual event calendar In Remote Life

What do you do if you’re an event discovery startup and suddenly it’s illegal to attend events? You lean into the cultural shift and pivot. Today, $11 million-funded calendar app IRL is mo

MSCHF’s latest stunt is to pirate video from Netflix and Hulu and Disney+ and maybe build a brand

It’s very likely that you don’t know MSCHF. It’s also likely that you’ve come across one of their wild-ass projects. From “Jesus Shoes” filled with holy water to a collar that lets your do

Apple launches Deep Fusion feature in beta on iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro

Update 5:02 PM PT: Developer beta containing Deep Fusion will not ship today after all. No date announced; just “coming.” Apple is launching an early look at its new Deep Fusion feature on

Calendar influencers? Event social network IRL raises $8M

Why is there no app where you can follow party animals, concert snobs or conference butterflies for their curated suggestions of events? That’s the next phase of social calendar app IRL that’s

IRL wants to get people together offline

Social planning apps are a dime a dozen, but none have risen to become a mainstay in our digital lives. IRL, founded by Abe Shafi and Scott Banister, is looking to break the pattern, focusing on posit