New York-based Amino, a platform for interest-based communities, announced today that it has successfully completed its Series C round of funding, raising $45 million with new investments from Hearst Ventures, and continued support from existing investors, including Union Square Ventures, Venrock, and GV (formerly Google Ventures).

The last twelve months has been chock full of milestones at Amino. An average user now spends more than 70 minutes per day browsing content, engaging in conversation, and participating in digital events surrounding their interests. Since launching user generated community creation in 2016, users have created more than 2,500,000 communities - 1.5 million of which were created since the beginning of 2018. These communities have expanded beyond niche interests to cover a full range of interests and identities, with communities focused on sports, music, politics, pop-culture, art, and all forms of entertainment.

Amino's community interactions have meaningfully changed shape with the recent introduction of live features, including voice chat, video chat, avatar chat, and Screening Room, a feature that lets users talk while watching their favorite videos. Together these features work to connect users through their interests, rather than their real-life social graph.


"So much of social media is dominated by interacting with people you already know: friends, family, and colleagues. On Amino, your interests create new sources of common ground. These live features break down communication barriers. You join a community that interests you and seconds later, you're interacting with people you share something in common with from all over the world," says Ben Anderson, Amino's CEO and Co-founder.

Amino is now live in seven languages, with a global audience joining Amino communities in German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Russian. It has raised more than $72 million in funding since co-founders Ben Andersen and Yin Wang launched with Techstars in 2014.

About Amino.
Amino makes apps for people to build communities and connections about their favorite things. There are Aminos for nearly everything, where anyone can immerse themselves in their interests; chatting, posting, and discovering new facets of the topics they care about most. Anyone can create their own Amino, creating safe spaces on their mobile devices to share the stuff that inspires them.

Amino was launched in 2014 by co-founders Ben Anderson and Yin Wang. Based in New York and Shanghai, Amino serves millions of active members in six different languages worldwide.

Amino is available for iOS and Android.