Pictured, left to right: Pamela Newenham, Aine Mulloy, Elva Carri, co-founders, GirlCrew.
GirlCrew, the social network for women, co-founded by three Irish women, launches in the US today, to coincide with International Women’s Day.
GirlCrew, a social networking app for women to make new friends, launches in the US today, to coincide with International Women’s Day. Co-founded by three Irish women, Elva Carri and Pamela Newenham and Aine Mulloy, GirlCrew provides a space for networking in both a social and professional capacity.
The Irish-founded social network has raised a seed round of almost $1 million from investors, including LinkedIn chief executive Jeff Weiner, Wrigley CMO Orla Mitchell, Reddit director of data science Joe Gallagher, Aegis Corporate Strategy managing director Hazel Hutchinson, PCH chief executive Liam Casey, Stanford University adjunct professor Stuart Coulson, and Enterprise Ireland, Europe’s third largest seed investor. The funding will allow GirlCrew to expand across the US city by city, with thousands of women already on waiting lists to get the app.
Platform for connecting
The GirlCrew platform is uniquely focused on connecting women for friendship and chats. Although a digital community, its aim is to facilitate in-person friendships, offering an additional channel in which to do so – creating a space for members to find a group to travel with, meet for coffee or a concert, or start a business.
Pamela Newenham, co-CEO of GirlCrew said, “We believe real friendships happen in person, however sometimes you need a nudge and an extra channel in order to meet these new like-minded people. So many people have either moved to a new city, or have found themselves at a different life stage to their friends, either because their friends are getting married, settling down etc. As a result, they need new friends, but making friends as an adult can be hard.”
GirlCrew, which started out using Facebook groups for each city it was active in, now operates through an app available on iOS and Android, and a desktop platform. GirlCrew has more than 100,000 members across in 46 cities worldwide.
Women simply join the group for their city, such as Toronto or Melbourne, and there they can see what events are happening, read posts and comments from other members, write posts themselves, create events and join topic groups (such as Travel, Careers, Entrepreneurs, etc).
Careers events
The start-up also runs a series of careers events in conjunction with Microsoft called GirlCrew Pro. The company has just renewed its partnership with GirlCrew for another year. Former speakers at GirlCrew Pro events include Joan Mulvihill (IC4),Fionnuala Meehan (Google), Anna Scally (KPMG), and activist Sinead Burke.
Microsoft Ireland CEO Cathriona Hallahan said: “Throughout my career my network of colleagues, friends and mentors have continued to grow and have been, and continue to be, key to me on my career journey. The idea behind GirlCrew of a global network of women engaging, sharing ideas and learning from each other is a simple but effective one and I wish the GirlCrew team the best of luck for the future.”
US launch
To celebrate the launch of the app for US members, GirlCrew, supported by Enterprise Ireland is hosting a Women in Tech event at the Consulate General of Ireland in Austin, TX, during the SXSW festival. Speaking at the event on March 12th are Mashable tech reporter Kerry Flynn, Brit + Co chief creative officer Anjelika Temple, Redenim CEO Kelly F. Ernst and Kimberly Foster, founder of For Harriet and Black Girls Gather.