Series launches with USD $3m to revolutionise networking

Series, a social platform focused on Gen Z users, has launched with USD $3 million in funding, aiming to transform how college students form connections through artificial intelligence (AI) facilitated introductions.

Founded by two Yale students, Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow, Series secured USD $3 million in a pre-seed funding round. The funding was led by Parable, spearheaded by Anne Lee Skates, a former a16z investor, with contributions from Pear VC, Tim Draper's DGB.VC, 47th Street, Radicle Impact, Uncommon Projects, and notable angel investors including Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, and Edward Tian, founder of GPTZero.

The platform uses AI agents, labelled as "AI Friends", to make double opt-in introductions via iMessage, focusing on mutual benefit and trusted networks. This approach seeks to counteract the prominence of vanity metrics on traditional social platforms, such as likes and follower counts.

"The problem of quantifying value online isn't a recent development - it started with Facebook back in '04. Not to say these platforms don't build great communities, but they embody the narrative that online metrics equate to real world value," noted Nathaneo Johnson, Co-founder and CEO of Series. "We're 6'5", Black, and technical - a direct foil to the Harvard story. And that difference is the reason Series tells a new story of how people connect online," he said.

Series aims to redefine networking by eliminating follower and engagement biases. Its system ensures introductions are made only when there is real mutual value between users, offering a fresh take on online networking. The platform requires users to register with an .edu email, ensuring a secure student-focused environment.

The journey to achieving the funding was expedited after co-founder Nathaneo Johnson's trailer about Series went viral in collegiate entrepreneurial circles, prompting swift interactions which saw their funding round close in 14 days.

The initiative launched as an extension of The Founder Series Podcast by the founders, which had already garnered significant traction with over 500,000 views. The transition into a platform facilitating curated introductions attracted strong initial interest at Yale and Princeton, helping Series accumulate over 32,000 messages sent by its AI Friends at the time of its launch.

Rich Zou, a student at Northeastern, shared his experience: "I forgot it (the AI friend) wasn't a real person. That was until I connected to a real person in the form of a minimalist profile my AI Friend (Oliver) had texted me. It was awesome," illustrating the platform's potential for real-world application.

Looking ahead, Series intends to broaden its scope beyond college entrepreneurs to fields such as finance, dating, education, and health, as stated by Johnson. "Once we capture the college entrepreneurial market, we'll expand to finance, dating, education, health, and more. All of these fields in the student space rely on trust, access, and social capital," he explained. "Our long-term vision is to become the largest and most accessible warm network for just about anything - one billion AI Friends in the next decade. Social connection is broken; we're rebuilding it with AI that acts like a well-connected friend in your pocket making connections to who you need, when you need, IRL."