Yope is sparking GenZ (and VC) interest with an Instagram-like app for private groups

Target photos and video applications with young adults with social hooks are a dozen dime nowadays, so those who show traction with 18-Twenty-centurying catch the attention of investors to look for the next Instagram or Tikatok.

In the latest instance, photo sharing app EOPWhich allows you to share fixed images in private groups, saying that it has used 2.2 million monthly active users and 800,000 daily active users with 30x growth in the last six months. And perhaps one of an important metric Very Fick Market, currently, the company has claimed to hold 40% of the day-of-the-one 40% of users are still using the application seven days after installing the application.

All of them are translating the activities into the VCS.

TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that the back startup of EOP has now raised $ 4.65 million primary seeds for $ 50 million dollars. Goodwater Capital Inovo is leading this round with VC and Redsid participation, as well as the angels included in Jean de La Rocharbotchard; GREG MANCChenko, who has sold face animation agencies Snapchat in 2020 from AI factory; Recover the application Co-founder (and A16z Scout) Dima Shevts; And former Google researcher Andrey is moneychen.

“EOP is running a little crazy to the guy/VCS,” a source told TechCrunch, who added that some hopefully mentioned it as “new Instagram.”

App

Yap’s interface is quite simple: you take a photo in the app, or you choose one from your library and send it to a group chat that you have joined or created with yourself. There, you will also see images shared by members of other groups, where you can respond to the picture and chat with the rest of the group. Each group also has a wall, a feature that uses machine learning to cut and splays the EOP images, combine pictures combined in an endless photo collage.

To increase the busyness, EOP has taken other social networks in the inspiration both good and bad. A lock screen widget lets you see the most recent photos of a group. A strike feature encourages users to keep posts. A feature called Recup runs a slideshow of images – like Google Photos and Apple’s Photo app. Onboarding for the first time, the app is deliberately chosen out of any of the misleading, but it is Is Possible

The company has also created the Ambassador Program to run awareness and installations with the payment to power users posted about apps on other platforms like Techotok and Instagram. EOP says that there are more than 56 million views in videos made by these ambassadors. The company has refused to say how much the company has installed these videos, but about 70-80% of its users are inviting them to their application through others.

Yap’s chief executive officer and co-founder Bahram Ismailu has said that Yop wants to reach 1 million monthly active users in the following year.

It is also planning more features. It has not yet launched the video, but it is working, the company said. Another is a daily check-in trigger that users to check in their group and see the photos they posted and respond to them. To add stickers to users, let the paint doodles and zoom in/out, months, or years, and the lock-screen timer adding new formats to the company with the lock-screen timer, the company wants to make the walls more interactive.

It also wants to launch a family group format to increase the use of the application outside of the original base of the Gen-Z: Currently, the average age of users in the app is 18 years.

When focusing on bringing more users to fetching, you are also thinking about revenue Ideas starting with yop subscription plans.

A road

EOP, the app has probably closed fairly recently, but the EOP startup has been a long time and it has not done it initially. Established by Ismailu and Paul Rudkoussky in 2021 – those who studied together at the Belarusian State University in Minsk – the team had been looking for tinkering and hits for years.

An app, Salo was a social networking chat app that bills itself as “the next jane of discussion on topics”. (Basically, the startup was called the salo after that) The pair also created a multi-camera app (similar to barial). In 2023, it focuses on a product to record the asynchronous video podcasts. Then, in September 2024, the company eventually created another pivot for the yop making.

The startup has a scattered team in various places, including New York, Miami, Lisbon and London (where they have an office). The company says it is planned to open a research and development center in the future and scouting for places.

The initial hook of Yap seems to fill a gap in the market as a place to share photos and chats in private groups.

Yes, you can create groups in WhatsApp and Snapchat. Yes, some have created a personal group account on Instagram. However, sharing photos, with some chat around it, is not really the original use for any of these huge applications.

What’s more, the idea of ​​Instagram seems really doubled this idea: FlipsideInstagram had its own effort to create a personal group, Closed Just five months after it was launched.

“Instagram and Snapchat have turned into a platform for curates. General Z users took a lot of pictures, only 1% of them were shared, “Ismailu said. He said Yap’s focus was very different from Snapchat and Instagram. It was especially about sharing” undesirable content “, he added.

In fact, there are dozens of more people who have tried to create a business around the concept of sharing in private groups. More recent efforts include Thrive Capital-Backed Retro And Marissa Maiyar SunshineHowever the attempt extends all the way The way in 2010The

The truth is that none of them really stuck. Is this a signal that can probably be a large, distinct business by default on private groups? EOP believes that time was probably the idea came to give another crack.

“In Goodwater, we invest in category-defined consumer applications and EOP is a major example of an important new social behavior,” Guthter’s co-founder and managing partner Chi-Hua Chian called Techchench an email. “Yope is making it easier for everyone to share their daily lives with close friends. Their explosive growth speaks about fragments about their products and team strengths. “

Growth for EOP actually looks good, but the proof manages how to maintain it. Berial (another app that tried to create a private group vibe) was one of the Hot year or twoEven inspires a clone from meta before growing DecreaseThe (That app was in the end Earned By applications and games agencies Voodoo.)

The team hopes that after missing a lot in the category – and in their own efforts to create big applications – EOP will become a hit.

“They are working hard,” a VC, who is not supporting the startup, told us.