Belong raised $1.5 million ahead of its Serie A round

• UAE-based social media app Belong (formerly ASKWHO) has raised $1.5 million ahead of its Series A round, bringing its total capital to $3.5 million.
• Founded in 2019 by Michael Askew and Matthew Gaziano, Belong is a social media app designed to connect people in cities.
• The round aims to enhance Belong’s offering and enable it to continue to expand in Dubai, San Francisco and New York.

Press release:

Belong, a Dubai-built social media app, makes it easy to make friends with a city-centric social app.

Belong announced that it will contribute another $1.5 million to improve its offerings and grow its user base, bringing its total capital raised to $3.5 million.

The company will use the funding to continue to accelerate the achievement of key growth and revenue milestones while strengthening and expanding its presence in New York, San Francisco and Dubai.

Belong has consistently seen significant growth in its subscription model and is seeing an increase in organic installs through its referral program, as well as expanding into new cities across the United States.

The city-centric platform allows users to build friendships by connecting with local people in common groups and topics, attending live events and discovering compatible local profiles using the discovery tool.

“Belong solves the real problem of loneliness and we have shown that our proprietary Dubai app actually performs exceptionally well both in Dubai and in more mature markets in the US. We are incredibly grateful for the continued support from our investors, the Belong team and our growing user base who strongly believe in and support our mission,” said Mike Askew, co-founder and CEO of Belong.

“According to a recent Cigna study, over 58% of American adults, or over 192 million people in the U.S. alone, say they feel lonely, and we believe this is a problem worth solving. That’s why we’re proud to continue to scale our solution across America and remain committed to ending the loneliness epidemic around the world,” he added.

“Throughout our journey, we have consistently worked with users and data to improve Belong to ensure a fast and effective response from connecting with like-minded people online to meeting in real life, while maintaining a sense of ‘belonging’ with the people around them. local communities,” said Matt Gaziano, co-founder and chief operating officer at Belong.

“The main problem we are solving is that mainstream social apps are inherently and, ironically, unsociable by design. Whether you’re new to the city or have lived there for years, we offer all people the opportunity to experience a positive sense of community when interacting with Belong, where everyone is welcome and supported,” he added.