Fizz, a social network for college students, says it wants to be like Facebook — when it was actually social.
The app, launched in 2021, lets students post anonymously (similar to Yik Yak), scroll through a "for you" feed of recommended content, and buy and sell items in a marketplace.
"It's most similar to OG Facebook in creating this very shared experience and hyperlocal form of social media in an era where TikTok and Instagram are highlight reel entertainment platforms," Teddy Solomon, Fizz's CEO, told Business Insider.
Solomon, who dropped out of Stanford in 2021 and moved to New York City in 2025, has been laying the groundwork for a major step: ramping up advertising and expanding globally.
To help scale Fizz's advertising business, the social startup raised an undisclosed strategic investment from celebrities, creators, and tech executives.
"We need human capital," Solomon said. Having the right people with "skin in the game" can help Fizz build stronger relationships with advertisers and potential partners, he added.
Instead of a titled round, it's a SAFE investment (a simple agreement for future equity) with a valuation cap of $200 million (the maximum valuation at which that investment is converted into future equity). Fizz declined to share further financial details. The new capital follows the company's $25 million Series B it raised in 2023.
"We're bringing in revenue," Solomon said, a turning point for any free social media platform. When Fizz previously raised capital, it was pre-revenue, Solomon said.
The app now has more than 800 colleges onboarded, and Solomon said Fizz is "well north of a million users" in the US. Around half of its active users use the app every single day, Solomon added. According to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, Fizz has been downloaded more than 2.2 million times globally.
Fizz is continuing to push into global markets, specifically, the Middle East. Earlier this year, it launched in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and plans to roll out to more countries within the coming months.
Users in the Middle East are also showing a new behavior on the Fizz app — extending their use of Fizz after college. The average age of Middle Eastern users on Fizz is 25, Solomon said, and since launching in Saudi Arabia this March, users have sent over 10 million direct messages on the app. Because of this, Fizz is experimenting with rolling out a subscription plan for the region.
However, advertising is still the key to its US plans.
Advertising to Gen Z students
Fizz is getting serious about advertising.
Late last year, it hired Andrew Zalk, who worked at Flipboard for nine years, to run Fizz's ads and brand partnerships.
"We're starting to build out a sales team and an account management team and making sure we have the right folks around the table to scale this properly," Solomon told Business Insider.
Currently, it offers a few advertising options, including branded polls, native app takeovers, and in-feed ads.
Some of its early advertising adopters include Sony Pictures, Amazon, AI companies such as Perplexity, and the prediction-market platform Kalshi. Study tools, like Quizlet, have used the platform to reach students. Dating apps, too, like Cerca, have advertised on Fizz to attract new college-aged singles.
Fizz also offers advertisers ways to target its users, such as specific college campuses or states, types of colleges — such as Ivy Leagues — or age demographics.
While school is out for the summer, Fizz is focused on the coming period of "back to school" ads.
There's one notable challenge for Fizz's business model, however: Anonymous social networks aren't always considered brand safe. Fizz has already faced scrutiny over its anonymous social feed, such as when The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024 that the app had stirred discord in a high school. The app does not allow high schoolers, and is currently rated 18+ on Apple's App Store. (Fizz does have a moderation system in place and uses both human moderators and an AI system to remove content that violates any of the platform's guidelines.)
A college social app that wants to graduate
Even with ads and more global users, building a new social platform is an uphill climb.
"In a graveyard space like social media, a space where nobody succeeds, how can we continue to be the one company that does?" Solomon said.
Much like Facebook, Fizz started out as an app for college students — and wants to graduate.
"When you arrive in college, you want to meet roommates, you want to meet friends, you want to find parties, you want to go to clubs, you want to find restaurants, you want to know what's happening nearby," Solomon said.
A lot of that rings true for people outside the student bubble.
"I'm 24 now," Solomon said. "As I have aged into the real world, I'm finding that there is a distinct need for Fizz in New York and beyond."
This is why Fizz wants users to connect with their broader — yet still local — communities. That's proving to be the case in its global rollout, Solomon said.
If Fizz wants to be anything like the next Facebook, it'll need to keep users coming back years after they graduate.
Fizz plans to expand beyond the college market in the US in 2027, Solomon said.
"We would much rather make this applicable to the entire generation," he added.
