Fishbowl raises $5.3m to grow its social network of conversing professionals
Fishbowl, “a social network upstart that has hundreds of thousands professionals chatting daily about their work lives,” has announced a $5.3 million Series A round led by GGV Capital with Alex Zhu, Head of TikTok, also participating in the round.
Founded in 2015, Fishbowl is tackling existing professional networking platforms like LinkedIn head-on, which prioritize “building a rolodex of connections over creating conversations between users.” Fishbowl enables professionals to congregate online across industries, and to have candid and open conversations with others in their field and company. “CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, widely recognized industry thought leaders, and junior analysts” are all frequent users of the platform.
To date, Fishbowl has captured “significant percentages” of employees at brand name companies across industries, spanning all ranges of seniority. More than 75% of US professionals at Boston Consulting Group, and 40% of US professionals at the Advertising holding company, Publicis, for example, are registered on the platform. Users spend on average 15 minutes a day on the mobile app.
Following its Series A round, Fishbowl will utilize funding to expand its reach across industries, with plans to open up to professionals in the law, entertainment, healthcare, and tech verticals.
“Current professional networks lack a space where users can share moments and candid thoughts from their work lives in the same way they do with their personal lives. We want to change how professionals converse with one another within companies and industries to create community and transparency that leads to positive change.” – Fishbowl’s CEO and cofounder Matt Sunbulli.
“As digital natives, Millennials and Gen-Z want to build more meaningful relationships and share all aspects of their lives in the workplace. The team at Fishbowl is taking professional social networks beyond old school rolodex to build relevance and community in a single product.” – Hans Tung, GGV Capital Partner.
Bottom Line: 4.5 star rating on the App Store
