A women-led startup called Honeycomb is launching a private social app for families, backed by $4 million in seed funding. Families can use the app to share their favorite moments and memories via their phone, instead of using a more public social media platform like Facebook or group texting, where photos and videos can be easily lost.
After leaving General Catalyst, Boyce founded a new firm, called Stellation Capital, which is the first startup he is backing. DCM, Bling Capital, and Precursor Venture are among the other participants in the round.
Amelia Lin is the CEO of Honeycomb, previously of Udacity and Optimizely. The co-founders had been inspired to create an app that would connect families through private social networking, but had originally conceived of a different product, called Saga. Their first app was a social audio experience that let families capture and record their life stories, like tales about how the grandparents first met, or even just birthday wishes for a child that can be listened to later, as a sort of audio diary.
The app got a lot of press, but it wasn't what families wanted. The team kept hearing from early adopters how they wanted to store their photos and videos, not just audio recordings. The team changed their app's name to Honeycomb.
The image is called Honeycomb.
The new experience launched into private testing in September, offering a way for families to save their favorite photos and videos, which are combined with text and turned into a digital story of sorts. The experience as it stands today isn't that much more robust compared with a group chat over iMessage, for instance, but it does offer an easy way to revisit older shares which can be difficult to do when using text messaging. It also allows users to set a reminder so they will remember to relive their favorite memories from the day, which is a feature that is best for new parents who quickly fill their phones with dozens of new photos daily as their baby hits new milestones.
The image is called Honeycomb.
Lin says that they help it become a daily ritual of sorting through the best memories of the day. She says that if you pick your favorites, they will be compiled into a story that will be shared with your family. She notes that the experience is not meant to replace existing photo services, like Apple's Photos app, where people back up and save all their content, including duplicate photos and those that didn't quite turn out well.
Lin doesn't think of that as a place where he interacts with his family. It feels really public to put my baby photos out on social media. Honeycomb is private by default.
Lin thinks that only your family can decide who is in here. She says that they don't sell your data to third parties.
The image is called Honeycomb.
Honeycomb is different from mainstream social apps because it will be a subscription-based service, not one that is monetized through advertising. The app is free until the startup gets the new app up and running.
Adding support for exporting its content to be shared elsewhere is one of the ways the company is working to address how to include the family's elder users into the platform. The team thinks that the draw of new baby and kid photos may be the push grandma or grandpa needs to figure out how to put the app on their phone, even if they are not technically savvy.
Users will gain access to a basic set of features after they download Honeycomb. They will be included in the new version of the site, which will include a more engaging story format for sharing memories with family and friends. The company says that this opt-in won't happen immediately, but that it is now rolling out.
The idea to help users find their best photos and videos is not the same as it was a few years ago. Whether or not people want to sort through their daily snaps after the buzz of a new baby wears off remains to be seen.
The image is called Honeycomb.
Artificial intelligence can be useful. I made a birthday photo album in the app and the cover photo was a photo of a person, not a toy. Users can sort through photos by removing those with poor lighting or bad exposure.
Users don't want an artificial intelligence to have the final say on their best photos or put together albums without any context about their lives and what they think is important. They don't want to be reminded through automated "memories" of times they forget.
The best solution may be a balance between manual and artificial intelligence in a private environment.
The startup isn't sharing user figures because it's a new app. Lin says engagement tripled after the pivot from Saga.
Peter Boyce, the founder of the company, said that honeycomb is using technology to advance one of their most basic and long-standing human desires: to archive and share their family's memories. The family album could be brought into the 21st century by honeycomb. It is rare to find a large problem space that is ripe for a change in innovation. Families are ready for the next evolution of social apps, one that is meant to be personal and intimate, and this team is building it.
The new funds will be used to hire engineers who will work from its San Mateo office space. It is expecting to add around 10 people.
