15 Innovative Social Media Startups to Follow

Woman looking at her phone.

Social media has become a staple in the lives of many, connecting people online as they would in real life. New and exciting social media platforms and innovative solutions launch every year to disrupt the sector from influencer marketing tools to social data resources. We identified the most exciting, innovative, and creative social media startups to watch in 2024 and beyond. 

Top Social Media Companies to Watch

Every year, new startups pull to the forefront of their industry through exciting innovation and industry-disrupting business models. We’ve rounded up the most exciting social media startups of 2024 that startup-lovers, investors, and aspiring entrepreneurs should follow. 

Disclaimer: With so many exciting startups launching and growing worldwide, we aren’t able to cover them all. Furthermore, the startups that are listed below are not officially ranked and are listed in no particular order.

1. Cobble

  • Location: New York, New York
  • Founders: Jordan Scott
  • Founded In: 2020
  • Funding: Seed, $3 Million
  • Investors Include: Kerr Tech Investments

Cobble's target market is couples, and some of the offerings include the coordination of epic date nights. The platform helps to guide the decision-making process around planning dates, which can certainly get intimidating at times.

2. Sprout Social

  • Location: New York, New York
  • Founders: Aaron Rankin, Gil Lara, Justyn Howard
  • Founded In: 2010
  • Funding: Series D, $111.5 Million
  • Investors Include: New Enterprise Associates, Future Fund, Lightbank

Sprout Social isn't a social media platform itself. The company focuses on delivering valuable social media tools for creating and scheduling content across social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and X. The platform connects brands with their audience to improve community efforts and allow them to make the most of each social network.

3. Pepper

  • Location: New York, New York
  • Founders: Jake Aronskind, Matthew Schkolnick
  • Founded In: 2020
  • Funding: Angel Investment
  • Investors Include: N/A

Pepper is a social media platform for food lovers, chefs, home cooks, and others involved in the food industry. Pepper brings together foodies across the world to share, create, and collaborate on tantalizing new recipes. Jake Aronskind and co-founder Matthew Schkolnick came up with the idea for Pepper during the 2020 pandemic wave when home cooking (bread anyone?) became a point of interest for many. 

4. Partiful

Partiful is a social media platform allowing users to create event pages to connect guests. Unlike other social platforms, Partiful is a private social network for users to more easily plan events and communicate with guests without having to conduct planning through confusing group chats and email chains. 

5. ShareChat

  • Location: Bangalore, India
  • Founders: Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, Farid Ahsan
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Funding: Series H, $1.7 Billion
  • Investors Include: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Tiger Global Ventures, Twitter Ventures 

ShareChat specifically focuses on regions in which various Indian dialects are spoken and brings these users together on one platform for content sharing and access to its news feed. This social media startup has been so successful in India that funding has been secured from major platforms like Twitter (X) and Google. 

6. Fishbowl (Acquired by Recruit Holdings)

  • Location: New York, New York
  • Founders: Loren Appin, Matt Sunbulli
  • Founded In: 2016
  • Funding: Seed, $7.4 Million
  • Investors Include: GGV Capital , Binary Capital

Fishbowl aids in the networking of social media users in various industries with common interests (education, finance, law, etc.) The motivation behind the platform is to increase information sharing, mentorship, and networking between individuals in the same sectors. The startup has seen adoption rates exceeding 40% in their current user clients. 

7. Fizz

  • Location: Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, California)
  • Founders: Ashton Cofer, Teddy Solomon
  • Founded In: 2020 
  • Funding: Series B, $41.5 Million
  • Investors Include: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Owl Ventures, Rocketship.vc

Fizz is a community-oriented social network for students and campuses to connect, discuss, and share critical news. With community moderation, the platform serves as a safe and secure method of communication for educational communities with features including direct messaging, photo-sharing, and polling. 

8. 500px (Acquired by Visual China Group)

  • Location: Toronto, Canada
  • Founders: Evgeny Tchebotarev, Oleg Gutsol
  • Founded In: 2009
  • Funding: Series B, $22.3 Million
  • Investors Include: Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, Suntech Power 

500px is a social sharing platform for photographers and those who love the photographic arts. Its tagline is "home to everyone's best photos," which seems in line with the high quality of the pieces being shared on the platform. Of course, the normal social media norms of "likes" and "follows" are adhered to, and amateur photographers have the opportunity to sell their work to followers as well.

9. Yubo

  • Location: Paris, France
  • Founders: Arthur Patora, Jérémie Aouate, Sacha Lazimi
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Funding: Series C, $65.7 Million
  • Investors Include: Sweet Capital, Iris Capital, Idinvest Partners

Yubo is a French social media startup that specifically targets the Gen Z market. The premise behind the platform is that users can interact with the knowledge that their information is safe and not being sold to influencers or marketers. Instead of making money through advertising, Yubo offers its users premium features and plans for purchase. 

10. Exolyt

  • Location: Helsinki, Finland
  • Founders: Felix Lindholm, Henri Malkki, Jonne Bovellán, Mauri Karlin
  • Founded In: 2020
  • Funding: Pre-Seed, €450,000
  • Investors Include: Founder's Edge, Trade Capital Funding

Exolyt makes TikTok profitable for brands and businesses by providing enhanced analytics and insights. The Finnish startup is powered by The Extravagant Company and takes business on TikTok to a whole new level with actionable data. 

11. Amino Apps

  • Location: New York City, New York
  • Founders: Ben Anderson, Yin Wang
  • Founded In: 2011
  • Funding: Series C, $72.4 Million
  • Investors Include: Union Square Ventures, Google Ventures, Venrock

Amino Apps allows users to build their own social platform for their community. The service allows users to customize the design, including logo, theme, and more, as well as utilize promotion tools to connect with potential customers. 

12. Lokal

  • Location: Bangalore, India
  • Founders: Jani Pasha, Vipul Chaudhary
  • Founded In: 2018
  • Funding: Series B, $29.8 Million
  • Investors Include: Y Combinator, Global Brain Corporation, Sony Innovation Fund

Lokal is an India-based social media startup offering a localized social media landscape for users to connect with people in their area. With over 40 million users on the platform, Lokal is a powerhouse in the social media sector, connecting people to locals in their area like never before. 

13. Beacons

  • Location: San Francisco, California
  • Founders: David Zeng, Jesse Zhang, Neal Jean
  • Founded In: 2019
  • Funding: $29.2 Million
  • Investors Include: Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, basecase capital

Beacons helps take influencer marketing to the next level. With Beacons, content creators are able to create link-in-bio websites for social platforms tailored to their brand and compatible with ecommerce, affiliate marketing, and more to increase conversions and grow their brand.

14. Eternal

  • Location: Brooklyn, New York
  • Founders: Luca Repola, Reggie James
  • Founded In: 2018
  • Funding: Series Unknown, $11 Million
  • Investors Include: Rogue VC, Precursor Ventures, Brightstone Venture Capital

Eternal is an avatar social network combining social media with the metaverse. Currently launched in beta, Eternal aims to provide a metaverse-adjacent social media platform for users to create a digital version of themselves to connect with others online. 

15. Writesonic

  • Location: San Francisco, California
  • Founders: Samanyou Garg
  • Founded In: 2021
  • Funding: Seed, $2.6 Million
  • Investors Include: HOF Capital, Rebel Fund, Y Combinator

Writesonic is a generative AI platform headquartered in San Francisco, California. Their AI-powered product helps users transform the way they create content to develop hyper-personalized, targeted content for social media campaigns. 

Recommended: Check out our full list of the top startups to watch!

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, social media platforms and social media solutions are some of the most exciting startups to watch. As they compete with top social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, backed by major funds such as Sequoia Capital and other investors, these social media innovators are disrupting the space with sector-shaping community apps.