The archive · Consumer Apps · Financial decision · 2012
Pair (YC W12) raises $4.2M to build a social network for exactly two people
Pair's couples-only iPhone app drew 220K downloads in a month, then raised a $4.2M seed round from more than a dozen marquee investors in May 2012.
Pair
What the business is
Pair was an iPhone app giving couples a private space to trade photos, draw together on one screen, send thumbkisses and message each other — a social network whose entire audience was one relationship.
Starting capital：$4.2 million seed round announced 2012-05-01
How it started
Pair was built by five Y Combinator co-founders — Oleg Kostour, Jamie Murai, Anton Krutiansky, Aswinkumar Rajendiran and Michael Petrov — who reasoned that a social network exclusively for couples was a rare, unfilled category. TechCrunch first wrote it up on 2012-03-23 as a 'social network for couples,' and downloads took off from there.
What happened
On 2012-05-01 TechCrunch reported a $4.2 million seed round whose investor list ran from Ashton Kutcher's A-Grade Ventures, Dave Morin, Paul Buchheit and Sam Altman to CrunchFund, Tencent, Yuri Milner, Betaworks, Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan, Gary Vaynerchuk and Elad Gil. The plan was to expand the mobile development and design team. Co-founder Kostour argued Pair and Path were complementary — Path for groups, Pair for two — even though Path's founder Dave Morin was an investor, and said the app had seen over 220K downloads in its first month.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Pair was a Y Combinator startup built by five co-founders — Oleg Kostour, Jamie Murai, Anton Krutiansky, Aswinkumar Rajendiran and Michael Petrov — around a deliberately small idea: a social network for exactly two people. The iPhone app let couples trade photos, draw on the same screen at the same time and send 'Thumbkisses,' a gesture where both thumbs touch the display together and the phone vibrates. TechCrunch first covered it on 2012-03-23 as a social network for couples.
On 2012-05-01 TechCrunch reported that Pair had raised a $4.2 million seed round from an unusually deep bench: Ashton Kutcher's A-Grade Ventures, Dave Morin, Paul Buchheit, Founder Collective, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures, Michael Birch, Sam Altman, CrunchFund, Tencent, Yuri Milner, Betaworks, Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan, Harjeet Taggar, Gary Vaynerchuk, Brandee Barker, Brian Pokorny, Elad Gil and Susan Wu. The money was earmarked for expanding the mobile development and design team.
Co-founder Kostour told TechCrunch the app had passed 220K downloads in the month since launch and that he saw Path as complementary rather than competitive — Path for sharing with a small group, Pair for two — even though Path founder Dave Morin had invested in Pair. The round story drew 105 points and 34 comments on Hacker News on 2012-05-02.
What has to be true
- Downloads proved the wedge: over 220K people tried a couples-only app in its first month, without any large-network distribution engine behind it.
- The feature set was only possible because the audience was fixed at two — shared drawing and touch gestures make no sense in a broadcast social network.
- A twenty-investor seed round including Yuri Milner, Dave Morin, Sam Altman and Tencent gave the two-person product credibility and hiring runway.
- The bet's own limit was visible at the time: growth depended on couples recruiting each other, and the app had no natural way to reach beyond one dyad.
What can be applied
A deliberately tiny network can create features big networks never will: Pair's design freedom came from refusing to serve anyone except a couple, which is also what made its growth ceiling obvious.
Aftermath
As of 2012-05-02 Pair had just announced its $4.2 million seed round, was planning to grow its mobile development and design team, and had logged over 220K downloads in its first month. Whether a couples-only network stayed indispensable after the novelty wore off is beyond this batch's sources.
Sources
- Yuri Milner, Dave Morin, SV Angel, CrunchFund And More Hook Up Pair With $4.2M
- HN discussion: Pair raises $4.2M
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