Yope Raises $12.3 Million After Reaching 15 Million Users

Yope has raised $12.3 million to develop a private social network built around small friend groups rather than public feeds, advertising or creator content.

Good to Know

• Yope has nearly 15 million registered users.
• Northzone led the round, taking total funding to $20 million.
• More than half of users open the app at least five days per week.

Yope Uses Private Groups to Drive Repeat Use

Users share between 10 million and 20 million photos, videos and stickers each week. Around 20% of active users have also invited an older family member.

Those figures helped attract Northzone, which approached Yope before leading the round. Inovo, Redseed and Geek Ventures also participated.

“Yope is a fresh, empowering and safe take on social media where the users are in full control of their experience in contrast to the predatory practices of Meta, TikTok or X,” said Pär-Jörgen Pärson, partner at Northzone, in a statement. “We are very excited to partner with Bahram, Paul [Rudkouski, co-founder] and their team to build the service far beyond the current millions of users and half a billion moments shared.”

Yope will use the money to hire staff, develop the product and open a US office. The team currently has around 35 employees.

Unlike Facebook, TikTok or Instagram, Yope keeps accounts private by default and does not use an algorithmic feed. Revenue plans centre on premium subscriptions rather than advertising.

Users build profile walls from photos, videos and cut-out stickers arranged in loose collages. Future updates will add music, interests, wallpapers, colours and social games.

AI Supports Connections Rather Than Content

CEO Bahram Ismailau said research involving more than 100,000 interviews found that many young users wanted private ways to share everyday content.

Around 30% used photo dump or spam accounts for smaller groups, while many others relied only on messaging.

“[Young people] don’t have any place to self-express if they are not ready to be an influencer,” Ismailau said.

“We found this big opportunity to create a new space for young people to be social. We called it Yope, and it’s an AI-native social platform for young people and the next generation.”

Yope plans to use AI for connection tools rather than generated posts. Mini-games for friends are expected within about a month, while later features may help groups arrange events, buy tickets or choose places to meet.

The app also includes private messaging, AI-created recaps and lock-screen widgets showing photos from friends. Its personalised walls borrow from the freedom once associated with Myspace, but keep interaction inside small private communities.