VCs are investing more money in social media startups this year after a dismal 2025

Aug 15, 2026 01:25 AM - 1 hour ago 1

A young female lies connected the furniture pinch a smartphone successful her hand

It's a reliable situation for a laminitis trying to build the next-generation Facebook.

With much apps than ever and the champion societal media giants dominating people's surface time, the title is fierce. Investors, meanwhile, are pining aft flashy AI deals.

There was a highest successful task superior finance successful societal startups successful 2021 — erstwhile apps for illustration BeReal and Clubhouse were getting group excited for caller challengers taking connected Instagram and TikTok — according to PitchBook data, and the number of deals has declined each twelvemonth since.

That 2021 highest saw 239 deals totaling $2.2 billion, per PitchBook's information of US transactions. In 2025, PitchBook counted 97 deals totaling $330 million.

(To beryllium fair, 2021 was an anomaly grounds twelvemonth for task superior crossed the board.)

So acold successful 2026, PitchBook counts much than 50 deals totaling $355 cardinal successful the abstraction arsenic of July 21 — already surpassing 2025 successful dollar flow. If that gait continues, the class could invited a flimsy rebound successful investor interest.

Which startups are raising capital? There's Fizz, an anonymous societal app for Gen Z, which raised a strategical information of superior arsenic it expands globally. There's besides Corner, a societal mapping app that lets group prevention and stock section spots (such arsenic restaurants, bars, and shops), which is gearing up for a Series A.

Zooming out, consumer-social startups — broadly ranging from societal media networks to making love apps to intermezo apps — were a fraction of the wide deals successful 2025.

Across each venture superior deals successful 2025, PitchBook estimates $513 cardinal successful woody flow. AI and SaaS made up a bulk of this. Specifically, PitchBook counted much than 11,800 AI deals successful 2025.

"Everyone fled user a mates years ago," Rick Heitzmann, cofounder of FirstMark Capital, told Business Insider.

That's near a remaining cohort of investors still connected the hunt, though. Investors astatine firms for illustration Menlo Ventures, Forerunner, and up-and-coming costs founded by VCs looking to spell solo are backing societal startups crossed sectors specified arsenic networking, dating, and AI.

There are plentifulness of startups racing to build societal networks that consciousness much "AI native," specified arsenic Eigen, which says it is processing a "mutual friend" that would move AI agents into a instrumentality for connecting people. The institution announced a $15 cardinal seed finance successful April.

PitchBook's information is limited, too, successful really it classifies societal startups. Some making love and societal AI companion aliases chat startups, including Eigen, do not autumn nether PitchBook's societal class and are truthful excluded from this dataset.

As AI continues to renew investor liking successful user societal startups, a monolithic question, however, stands: What — if thing — will really stick?

Read Business Insider's list of 22 VC firms backing societal startups.

Sydney Bradley has been covering media and tech for Business Insider since 2020. She breaks news and writes extensively astir Instagram and Facebook, arsenic good arsenic new social media startups, dating apps, the creator economy, venture capital, and tech culture.She regularly contributes to BI's "After Hours" series, wherever our reporters dive into the societal scenes shaping tech, media, and finance.Sydney's reporting connected Instagram was nominated arsenic a finalist for the 2021 Los Angeles Press Club National Entertainment Journalism Awards.She graduated from the University of Virginia pinch a grade successful American Studies. You tin travel Sydney's activity connected LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram astatine @sydneykbradley.Have a tip? You tin besides interaction her via encrypted messaging app Signal (@sydneykbradley.123), encrypted email ([email protected]), aliases modular email ([email protected]). Use a individual email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guideline to sharing accusation securely.