Tagg, a “social branding” app connecting young creatives, announced on Friday (Dec. 17) that it had raised $2 million in seed funding.
According to TechCrunch, the funding round was led by some tech heavyweights, including Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone, Trip Advisor Founder Stephen Kaufer and former Facebook exec Ed Baker.
“In the digital world, the more authentic your brand, the more genuine your connections. Current social platforms fall short, as they were not built for this evolving intersection of branding and connecting,” the company says. “Tagg is building and growing an environment allowing for full creative expression of oneself — no restrictions, no stigma.”
Tagg lets users design their profiles depending on how they want to use the app, whether it’s to socialize or to promote their work, similar to Twitter, Facebook or other apps. But unlike those social networks, Tagg purposely doesn’t record “likes.”
“We do not have likes — just comments, sharing and views — because we want our creatives focused on being their favorite selves with no stigma,” Co-founder Victor Loolo said in an interview with TechCrunch.
That stigma has gotten Washington involved, with Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introducing a bill that would bar social media platforms from allowing like accounts for users under 16.
Read more: Instagram Moves to Head Off Criticism, Debuting Teen Protections Prior to Senate Hearing
Earlier this month, Blumenthal held a hearing on the issue. He’s been a sharp critic of social media in general and Instagram specifically. In October, his office established a bogus Instagram account, masquerading as a teenage girl. “Within a day, its recommendations were exclusively filled with accounts that promote self-injury and eating disorders. That is the perfect storm that Instagram has fostered and created,” the senator said.
Tagg, meanwhile, says it aims to create a space where users can be themselves, inspired by Loolo’s experience playing football at Brown University, where he had trouble defining himself outside of life as a student athlete.
“People are kind of put into a box. Let’s say I’m a guy who does cooking videos on TikTok — I’m the cooking video guy. But I might enjoy video games and other stuff,” Loolo said. “We wanted to break away from that and allow for these creatives to curate more holistic pictures of themselves.”