Peanut announces $12m Series A funding

Peanut, the leading social network for women, has today announced the closing of a $12 million Series A funding led by the EQT Ventures fund, the multi-stage Venture Capital fund in Europe and the US.

Index Ventures and Female Founders Fund also participated in the round bringing the company’s total funding to USD$21.8 million.

Naza Metghalchi from EQT Ventures joins Peanut’s majority-female board, alongside Hannah Seal from existing investor Index Ventures.

This injection will be used to expand Peanut’s product offering to women at different life stages and accelerate building the product and engineering teams globally. Lyle Fong, Partner at EQT Ventures, will use his expertise in community-focused products to aid Peanut’s next stage of growth, establishing Peanut as the leading social network for women.

This month, Peanut launched ‘Mute Keywords’, a feature allowing users to remove certain discussions from their feeds and notifications. For example, if a user wants to see less content around a topic, they can mute certain keywords. This highlights the work Peanut is doing to ensure that each woman has a personalised experience, including safeguards for those dealing with stress, anxiety and other mental health issues.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, engagement across Peanut is up 30% and there has been a 40% increase in content consumption.

The community has grown from 1 million users in December 2019 to 1.6M in April 2020, proving that Peanut has become the online destination for women at similar life stages to build friendships, find support and learn from one another.

Peanut CEO, Michelle Kennedy says, “We’re thrilled to welcome EQT Ventures, Naza Metghalchi and Lyle Fong to our existing roster of backers.

“Lyle’s unprecedented experience of building and scaling community-focused products will be vital as we undertake our next stage of growth in raising the bar in terms of product excellence as we enter new communities beyond fertility and motherhood.”

“Peanut’s user engagement metrics are a testament to the app’s ability to act as a true emotional companion throughout women’s journeys,” said Naza Metghalchi, venture lead and investment advisor at EQT Ventures.

“The EQT Ventures team is excited to partner with Michelle and continue to grow Peanut into a platform that serves all women at different life milestones, exploring topics beyond fertility and motherhood which have already seen such huge traction.”

Peanut was launched in 2017 by Michelle Kennedy, who previously served as the Deputy CEO at multi-billion dollar dating app, Badoo. Kennedy was also an inaugural board member of dating app mainstay Bumble, and was integral to its launch.