Fizz raises $25M
A new social media company growing on college campuses across the US
Public Data
Company: Fizz
Press Release: Techcrunch
Market (geography): US
Market (industry verticals): Higher Education
Customer demographic: College students
Leadership Team: Rakesh Mathur, Ashton Cofer, Teddy Solomon
Investors: Owl Ventures, New Enterprise Associates
Public business data:
Serve 80 US campuses, with plans to serve 250 schools by end of year
In 2022, over 95% of Stanford students had downloaded the app
~275K downloads as of 8/28/23, according to Data.ai (fka App Annie)
ETCH Assessment
Bull case:
Almost every social app of note starts out by serving an underserved community extremely well, often on a college campus. The origin stories of companies like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are well-known, but this description also fits more recent successes like Handshake (college students were intimidated by LinkedIn) and Strava (competitive athletes). In Fizz’s case, an early positive indicator that they are filling a distinct need is the 95% penetration rate on the Stanford campus.
Furthermore, Fizz is led by a founder with 7 exits under his belt. The CEO’s leadership should help an otherwise young team stay focused on the most important metrics for building a venture-scale social app. It also is generally a very positive indicator when a company’s existing investors - in this case Owl and NEA - lead two consecutive investment rounds.
Bear case:
The recent history of startup social apps is not great. Much-heralded in the tech press, Clubhouse and BeReal now face serious concerns after positive initial adoption. (Comfortingly, Fizz seems more focused on building for its core user base rather than cultivating tech press beyond its funding announcements.)
Further, while Fizz’s CEO has a fantastic track record, he does not have much experience in social media specifically. Not unlike EdTech, the social media market has peculiarities that tend to favor teams with experience - the most recent example being the growth, and exit to Discord, of the Gas App team.
The company also openly admits it will be a winding journey to monetization. The long and established track records of the CEO and lead investors Owl and NEA should help the company manage this, but it is probably harder now that it has been in the past ~20 years to build a startup with a high burn rate.
In the company’s words:
We wrote this post using the information publicly available to the ETCH team. If you are a member of the Fizz leadership team, we welcome your feedback! We will update this post to include any commentary you feel appropriate in this section.
Email matt@etch.club for more information
ETCH Funding / M&A is a feed of information and analysis of the latest in Education and Future of Work funding rounds. It is a sister publication to ETCH Weekend Reading and the ETCH Weekly Update, which provide additional context and analysis of what is happening in the EdTech ecosystem. If you enjoyed this edition, we hope you will subscribe and/or forward it to your friends!