Howbout Limited

Summary

Howbout is a VC-backed social app to get friends together. After an exciting year that saw them scale to 300K+ users (10x growth since last fundraise) in 125+ countries and get featured in Apple’s top 10 social apps, Howbout is inviting its community to join leading VCs & angels in its seed round.

• 300,000+ users | 2,000,000+ plans organised | 125+ countries
• Backed by top VCs & angels (inc. Snapchat VP and ex-TechStars MD)
• 75%+ new users are organic  | 10x user growth since last fundraise
• Featured in Apple’s top 10 social apps

Operations

Everyone knows the problem

Getting friends together is slow, manual & frustrating. Not only that, we believe social media isn’t about friends anymore - it’s about followers, fans & feeds. Howbout is a closed-network social platform that focuses on connections, not creators. It harnesses the social power of the calendar, and combines it with friends, chats & plans.

Mission to be the global go-to way to get friends together

Just like with Discord, BeReal & Telegram, Howbout has seen huge organic growth as friends look to platforms that focus on connectivity. Since our 2021 investment round, we’ve scaled our userbase to 300K+ users (10x growth) in 125 countries and had 2M+ plans made. We were also named as a 2021 finalist for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards Startup of the Year, listed by TechRound as one of the best startups to work at and were spotlighted by Apple as an app to manage your social life.

Backed by incredible VCs & tech execs

As part of this round, we’re now backed by Supernode Global, Boost Capital & Angel Invest. We’re excited to continue our community-first approach by inviting our users & community to invest alongside these leading investors.

Global vision

It’s been an exciting start, but we’re only getting started. We’ll be using the funds to grow our product, marketing & engineering teams and fuel expansion in the UK & globally.

Team

Neil Tanna (Co-founder & CEO)

Ex-corporate lawyer focused on the tech sector, Neil heads up our product & business vision. Previously awarded “Student Leader of the Year” at University of Exeter

Duncan Cowan (Co-founder & CTO)

Duncan worked as a spacecraft engineer before Neil convinced him that co-founding Howbout would be as exciting as putting satellites in the sky. Has extensive experience in app, web & game development

Jake Jenner (Co-founder & CFO)

Ex-investment banker turned private equity Investor, Jake’s focused on harnessing & applying our data, analytics and trends as well as our financials & forecasting

Claire Valoti (Howbout NED & Investor, VP EMEA at Snap Inc.)

Responsible for building and scaling Snap’s EMEA business, Claire brings years of experience at Snap and Facebook in how to monetise & scale mobile apps.

Sameer Singh (Howbout Advisor & Investor, Atomico Angel Programme)

A network effects expert & Investor, Sameer is a key advisor in areas of virality, data and growth.

In addition to our VCs, and Claire & Sameer, our advisory team includes Jag Singh (ex-MD at Techstars), Graham Paterson (Product Partner at Connect Ventures), Amir Nooriala (CSO at Callsign) & Desigan Chinniah (experienced tech exec & Investor).

Risks

As with any investment, investing in Howbout carries a level of risk. Overall, based on the key risks highlighted below, the degree of risk associated with an investment in Howbout is higher than in a company that's trading on a public market.

Early-stage investment

Howbout is at one of the earliest stages of the business lifecycle, and the failure rate of companies at that stage is usually much higher than those at a later stage.

Illiquid investment

The number of transactions in shares of private companies is usually significantly lower than in public companies, typically resulting in it taking longer to sell shares in private companies at a price that is at least equal to the price that the shares were bought at. Accordingly, the Howbout investment opportunity is considered to be higher risk than more liquid companies.