- Investments in consumer social startups have declined, but some are still searching for the next big app.
- I spoke with 12 investors about the state of social networks and what they are looking for.
- They talked about how AI will spur new apps and how Gen Z and Alpha will shape what's ahead.
It's just a matter of time until the next big thing in social media drops.
TikTok's future hangs in limbo. Instagram feels less and less social. And more recent newcomers, like BeReal and Clubhouse, flourished and faded like fashion trends.
Where are venture capitalists and angel investors hunting for the new killer app? I spoke with 12 investors who have either backed buzzy social startups, recently launched funds focused on the category, or are angel investors with their own apps.
"We finally are at a tipping point because of frustration with policy changes, algorithmic feeds, privacy breaches, excessive commercialization," Alex Hofmann, CEO of mobile app conglomerate 9count and founding partner of early-stage venture firm Progression Fund, recently told me. "It's time for a change. It's time to build better products."
Startup founders have been seeing opportunities in areas like dating apps, where consumer disgust at the status quo has been the sentiment of a string of trend pieces. And rampant loneliness is also fueling a wave of new apps trying to connect people IRL.
It's not easy to snag investment in the consumer space, though.
VCs have generally cooled on consumer investments and are eyeing deals in AI and enterprise instead. According to data from Crunchbase, investments in consumer-focused social companies slumped from $3.1 billion in 2021 (with 487 deals) to $900 million in 2024 (with 128 deals). Just 6% of investments from top VC firms went to consumer tech companies in 2024, per an analysis of PitchBook data by Silicon Valley Bank.
A tougher market has made new social startups start out lean and focus on monetization earlier.
"It's when you're building in times of difficulty that makes you really creative," said Derek Chu, a partner at consumer-focused venture firm FirstMark. The firm invested in IRL events startup Posh in 2024 and previously backed Discord and Pinterest.
Here are five takeaways from my conversations with investors on the future of social.
1. Get ready for a whole lot of apps thanks to AI
Building off of AI tech from the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini, some startups are churning out mobile and web applications — often described as AI wrappers — that are consumer-facing.
"There is room for real, disruptive application-layer innovation," said Maitree Mervana Parekh, a principal investor at Acrew Capital. She's particularly interested in startups building consumer-facing developer tools that help anyone create their own app using LLMs, such as Websim or Lovable (neither are in Acrew's portfolio).
Websim, for instance, shared several social-media tools created by users to X (formerly Twitter) in February, including a way to share events, post hot takes, or vote on "would you rather" prompts. Meanwhile, Swedish startup Lovable recently announced it had raised $15 million in pre-Series A funding and said in a blog post that it had produced over 1 million apps since launching in 2024.
AI is already a "seismic" platform shift in consumer, FirstMark's Chu said, comparing it to the shift to mobile that defined the 2010s.
Hugo Amsellem, general partner at Intuition VC, has his eye on startups leveraging AI that can curate and match people, such as professional networking platform Boardy. Amsellem is betting that in the next two to three years, more "multiplayer" AI protocols will emerge and begin to see similar network effects to social media platforms.
Still, there are questions about scalability for this new wave of apps and where a winner could emerge.
"A lot of investors are trying to figure out, 'Is there an internet-scale consumer AI company to be built?'" said Charles Hudson, managing partner and founder of Precursor Ventures. "If there is, is it going to be something like a Character AI? What is it going to be? We don't know."
2. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are driving new trends
Younger internet users have a new way of interacting: sharing every single thing they watch, listen to, or do.
"Consumer social is evolving from sharing moments to sharing metrics," said Rhian Horton, an investor at Stellation Capital. "People are creating platforms where users can track, curate, and share their digital footprints automatically with friends."
Spotify Wrapped, the yearly summary of everything people listened to, is a cultural cornerstone for a lot of these platforms.
"Young people want to obsessively share what they were doing with all their friends," said Zehra Naqvi, an angel investor and founder building a fandom-focused AI platform Lore. She previously was an investor at VC firm Headline.
Both Horton and Naqvi listed Airbuds, a music-sharing platform that was one of my favorite apps in 2024, as an example of this. The feed lets users see every song their friends are listening to, regardless of what streaming service they use. It also summarizes who their top artists and albums are by the week.
Shelf, a landing page for everything you are watching, reading, and listening to, was also mentioned by Horton and Naqvi. Stellation invested in Shelf's parent company, Kudos.
3. Goodbye, mass algorithms. Hello, close friends and niche communities.
Naqvi said some internet users are feeling fatigued on legacy social networks. This could result in a "death of mass algorithms," which she thinks will spur more "highly personalized" platforms.
"What I've been seeing, especially in consumer around connection, is more niching down and products being built for people around certain interests," said TJ Taylor, who launched a pre-seed stage fund called Hobart Ventures late last year.
Niche-interest social apps are a category Progression's Hofmann has also focused on. His company, 9count, acquired the LGBTQ+ social app Lex in 2024 and recently invested in the real-life friends app Mozi.
Mozi, founded by Twitter cofounder Ev Williams and Molly DeWolf Swenson, launched in late 2024 and helps users find friends nearby.
James Joaquin, cofounder and managing director of Obvious Ventures, invested in Mozi as well (Williams is also a cofounder at Obvious).
"One of the consumer areas that my team and I have done a lot of work on is around mental health and around the loneliness epidemic that's happening worldwide," Joaquin said. "This is a big part of our thesis with Mozi, is it's a new kind of social network to actually help people build and strengthen in-person relationships."
Others aren't so sure this category can stand alone.
"I'm not yet convinced that's going to look like an entirely new platform," Mervana Parekh said. Instead, maybe a larger platform or network will add more features around this.
Nia Johnson, founder of Party Ventures (an investment DAO focused on pre-seed and seed startups), said that this category of social networks also faces hurdles in terms of monetization and retention.
"There isn't a lot of reach by design," Johnson said, and limited interactions could cause users to "get bored and churn out."
4. Dating is ripe for disruption, but investors aren't so sure there's promise for returns
As larger dating app companies face headwinds, there's a new generation of startups trying to disrupt the landscape.
Some new dating startups are leveraging AI as a way to differentiate themselves from the standard apps available right now. Amsellem pointed to the French dating app Gigi (he is an angel investor), which uses an AI agent that acts like a matchmaker.
Kathryn Weinmann, a principal investor at FirstMark, pointed to the similar AI matchmaking app Sitch.
Gen Z is also going to shape a lot of the new dating apps right now, Hobart's Taylor said. Taylor worked at Raya, a dating app known for its exclusivity, for several years. He's been interested in dating apps that are tapping into social niches like gaming, or trying to build products focused around "real-world interactions" and "community approaches" that feel more natural.
Younger people are also interested in apps that help them find any form of connection, whether that's a date or a new friend — especially IRL.
"The next platform that is going to be great for dating, or for even just friendships, will be in this category of 'utility first, community second' and obviously won't look like a traditional dating app," Stellation's Horton said.
And at the end of the day, any social network can be a dating app if it has profiles and DMs, Taylor added.
However, some investors have soured on dating apps, and a few told me they were either not interested in writing checks in the space or just hadn't seen anything promising yet.
"If we're looking for the multibillion-dollar outcomes though, as a venture investor, I don't think you're going to find it there," said Marlon Nichols, founding partner at MaC Venture Capital.
5. The biggest problem facing the next wave of social apps will be Big Tech
"The elephant in the room is watching what Meta and Apple and Google are doing," said Obvious Ventures' Joaquin.
When it comes to investing in new internet companies, Joaquin said the biggest challenge startups face is "flying too close to the sun."
Any hot new social app can quickly be copied by a giant. More recently, we've seen this happen with Apple launching its own event invite app for iCloud users, potentially cutting another slice into the pie for the next wave of events apps like Partiful, Posh, or Luma.
"The road is lined with skeletons of startups," Joaquin said.
