IRL Valuation, Funding & Investors
IRL is not operational anymore. Its last reported valuation was $1.2B as of June 2021.
Last IRL valuation
$1.2B
Series C · Jun 2021
Last IRL funding round
$170M
Series C · Jun 2021
Cumulative funding IRL raised
$197M
across 4 funding rounds
Key investors in IRL
Founders Fund
Long Journey Ventures
Goodwater Capital
Floodgate
500 Global
SoftBank Group
About IRL
IRL, short for In Real Life, was a San Francisco social app that began as a tool for discovering and organising real-world events and later became a group messaging network built around communities and shared interests. Users could create or join groups, chat with members, RSVP to events and follow creators, and the product was aimed mainly at teenagers and young adults. The company operated through its parent entity, Get Together, and was founded by Abraham Shafi, who served as chief executive, together with Scott Banister, Krutal Desai and Henry Khachatryan. It was funded by venture investors including Floodgate, Founders Fund, Goodwater Capital, SoftBank and Dragoneer, and planned to earn money from advertising and creator tools. It bought the digital nutrition company AeBeZe Labs in 2021 and ceased operations in June 2023.
Founded
2016
HQ
San Francisco, CAWebsite
Status
Closed
Customer focus
B2C
Revenue model
Advertising
Valuation
$1.2B (Jun 2021)
IRL Valuation
IRL is insolvent and not operational anymore. Read the announcement ↗
IRL was last valued at $1.2B, based on its Series C in June 2021. Read the announcement ↗
The $170M round was led by SoftBank Group, with participation from Dragoneer, Owl Capital, Long Journey Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Floodgate and 1 other investor.
IRL valuation by funding round
| Date | Stage | Valuation |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 2023 | Write-down · Insolvency | $0 |
| Jun 2021 | Series C | $1.2B |
IRL Funding History
Before winding down, IRL has raised a total of $197M across 4 funding rounds.
IRL's first fundraising round was a $3M seed round in January 2018. The most recent completed round was a $170M Series C in June 2021.
IRL funding rounds
| Date | Stage | Investors | Raised | Valuation | Deal Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 2021 | Series C | SoftBank Group (lead); Dragoneer; Owl Capital; Long Journey Ventures; Goodwater Capital; Floodgate; Founders Fund | $170M | $1.2B | SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led a million Series C in IRL in June 2021, with participation from new investor Dragoneer and returning investors Goodwater Capital, Founders Fund, Floodgate and Owl Capital. The oversubscribed round valued the San Francisco group messaging social network at.17 billion, making it a unicorn, and brought total funding to more than million. IRL said it had grown 400% and used the proceeds for new group messaging features and a Culture and Creator Fund. The company began as a tool for discovering real-world events, pivoted to online events during the pandemic and had partnerships with TikTok. It was co-founded by chief executive Abraham Shafi in 2016 and operated through its parent, Get Together. The round later became the subject of fraud charges: the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in 2024 that Shafi overstated organic user growth to raise about million, and IRL shut down in June 2023 after its board concluded that about 95% of its accounts were automated or bots. |
| Sep 2020 | Series B | Goodwater Capital (lead); Convivialite Ventures; Mark Pincus; Long Journey Ventures; Raine Ventures; Floodgate; Founders Fund | $16M | - | IRL (In Real Life) is a social calendar and event discovery platform designed to help people organize and discover events to attend together. The platform provides a centralized space for users to RSVP to events, whether in-person or virtual, and measures engagement through a proprietary metric called "Time Together" that tracks hours users spend attending events they have RSVP'd to. In September 2020, IRL announced a $16 million Series B funding round led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Founders Fund, Floodgate, and Raine. The round brought the company's total raised to $27–$28 million since its 2017 founding. The funding was earmarked for building out IRL's web product and expanding internationally. At the time of the Series B, IRL had experienced 10x growth in daily active users since its June 2019 launch and users had spent 300 million hours in "Time Together" on the platform. The company had also launched a college network feature covering over 100 institutions including Harvard, USC, Columbia, and NYU, and had secured partnerships with major brands including TikTok, SoundCloud, and HBO to promote virtual events on its platform. |
| Jun 2019 | Series A | Goodwater Capital (lead); Kleiner Perkins; Long Journey Ventures; Founders Fund; Fort Ventures | $8M | - | IRL, the San Francisco social calendar and event discovery app, raised an $8 million Series A round led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Fort Ventures and Long Journey Ventures. The round followed the company's seed financing from Floodgate, Founders Fund and angel investors, and its proceeds were used to build out the app that let users find events, RSVP and meet people attending them. A Delaware Court of Chancery opinion in the later litigation involving co-founder Abraham Shafi records the round at $8 million. IRL was co-founded by Shafi, Scott Banister, Krutal Desai and Henry Khachatryan and was incorporated through its parent, Get Together. The company went on to raise a $16 million Series B in September 2020 and a $170 million Series C in June 2021 before shutting down in June 2023. |
| Jan 2018 | Seed | Floodgate (lead); Founders Fund (lead); Long Journey Ventures; 500 Global | $3M | - | IRL, the event discovery and social app then known as Get Together's In Real Life, raised seed funding in early 2018 from consumer technology investors including Floodgate and Founders Fund, together with individual angels. The company did not disclose the amount of the round or its terms when the funding became public in February 2018, and the database carries it at $3 million. IRL was co-founded by chief executive Abraham Shafi with Scott Banister, the first board member of PayPal and an early Facebook investor, and with Krutal Desai and Henry Khachatryan, who had previously founded GetSponge.com. The app, based in San Francisco, was positioned as an anti-social alternative that helped people organise real-world meetups, and it was aimed at younger users at a time when concern about teenage screen time was rising. It found early traction in 2018, ranking among Apple's top social apps. The company shut down in June 2023. |
Who has invested in IRL?
13 investors have backed IRL across its funding rounds, including Founders Fund, Long Journey Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Floodgate, 500 Global and SoftBank Group.
Lead investors include SoftBank Group, Goodwater Capital, Floodgate and Founders Fund.
IRL Investors
| Investor | HQ | Rounds | Role | First check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | 4 | Participant | Jan 2018 | |
| San Francisco, CA | 4 | Lead | Jan 2018 | |
| Burlingame, CA | 3 | Lead | Jun 2019 | |
| San Francisco, CA | 3 | Lead | Jan 2018 | |
| San Francisco, CA | 1 | Participant | Jun 2021 | |
| San Francisco, CA | 1 | Participant | Sep 2020 | |
| San Francisco, CA | 1 | Participant | Jun 2021 | |
| Menlo Park, CA | 1 | Participant | Jun 2019 | |
 Tokyo | 1 | Lead | Jun 2021 | |
![](data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20"><rect fill="%23e5e7eb" width="20" height="20" rx="4"/></svg>){kind=small} Mark Pincus | Aspen, CO | 1 | Participant | Sep 2020 |
| San Francisco, CA | 1 | Participant | Sep 2020 | |
This data is available for Pro users. Sign up to see all 13 IRL investors. Start Free Trial | ||||
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Start Free TrialAcquisitions by IRL
IRL has acquired 1 company to date.
Last acquisition by IRL was on December 2nd 2021. IRL acquired AeBeZe labs for undisclosed valuation.
Latest Acquisitions by IRL
| Description | AeBeZe labs is a developer of applications focused on health and wellness prescriptions. The platform offers digital tools for lifestyle improvements and medical guidance through its prescription-based services. |
| HQ Country |  |
| HQ City | London |
| Deal Date | 2 Dec 2021 |
| Valuation | undisclosed |
| EV/Revenue | |
| EV/EBITDA | |
This data is available for Pro users. Sign up to see all IRL acquisitions and their M&A valuation multiples. Start Free Trial | |
IRL Competitors
IRL competitors included listed companies like Dear U, Matrimony.com, Globalway and Global Interactive Technologies, and private ones like AddMe and Whispto.
| Company | HQ | Status | Revenue | EBITDA | Valuation | Revenue Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 South Korea | Publicly listed | $62M | $16M | $339M | 3.4x | |
 India | Publicly listed | $49M | $6M | $120M | 1.9x | |
| Japan | Publicly listed | $25M | $2M | $25M | 0.9x | |
| South Korea | Publicly listed | $2K | ($4M) | $7M | - | |
| Cincinnati, OH | Private | - | - | $700K | - | |
| London | Private | - | - | $600K | - |
IRL Public Comps
IRL is defunct now, but its public comps included Worlds, Amaze Holdings, Triller Group, Pomvom, UCapital24, Bebuzee, eMan and Okweb.
| Last FY | EV/Revenue | EV/EBITDA | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | EBITDA | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | |
| - | ($435K) | - | - | (2.0x) | - | |||
| $2M | ($50M) | 2.0x | 2.0x | (0.1x) | (0.3x) | |||
| $22M | ($156M) | 7.5x | - | (1.0x) | - | |||
| - | - | - | - | - | - | |||
| $3M | $1M | 1.5x | - | 3.9x | - | |||
| - | ($69K) | - | - | (62.0x) | - | |||
This data is available for Pro users. Sign up to see all IRL competitors and their valuation data. Start Free Trial | ||||||||
Common questions about IRL
| What happened to IRL? | IRL is not operational anymore and insolvent as of 25 June 2023. |
| When was IRL founded? | IRL was founded in 2016. |
| Where was IRL headquartered? | IRL was headquartered in San Francisco, CA, United States. |
| Was IRL publicly listed? | No, IRL was a private, VC-backed company. |
| What was IRL's valuation? | IRL was last valued at $1.2B in its Series C in June 2021. |
| How much did IRL raise? | IRL raised $197M across 4 funding rounds. |
| What was IRL's last funding round? | IRL's last funding round was a $170M Series C in June 2021, led by SoftBank Group. |
| Who were IRL's investors? | IRL's investors included Long Journey Ventures, Founders Fund, Goodwater Capital, Floodgate, Dragoneer, Convivialite Ventures, Owl Capital, Kleiner Perkins, SoftBank Group, Mark Pincus and 3 others. |
| Who were IRL's competitors? | IRL's competitors included Dear U, Matrimony.com, Globalway, Global Interactive Technologies, AddMe and Whispto. |
| How many companies did IRL acquire? | IRL acquired 1 company, including AeBeZe labs. |
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