Nick D’Aloisio, a British entrepreneur, has sold strike a deal for his startup with Twitter. He is a serial entrepreneur who sold his mobile app Summly to Yahoo at 17.
Back then, he set the deal for $30 m and now he is again into the news for selling his latest company to Twitter.
He along with Tomas Halgas founded The Sphere group chat app. Sphere is an application that helps strangers with common interests connect with one another.
No details about the amount of sale have been disclosed yet and the deal with close in November.
The company’s 20 or so employees will use their expertise to integrate social network features.
The business began as an online Q&A service that allowed customers to contact professional experts instantly. That version of the platform had almost 500,000 users at the end of 2018.
However, he observed himself drawn to the app’s social aspect, which brought people interested in the same issues together.
“What I found fascinating was that people were chatting so frequently throughout the day, and it wasn’t simply to their buddy on Facebook; it was to someone they’d never met about something they were passionate about,” he said.
As a result, the software gradually changed focus to group conversations.
“The aim was to open up new possibilities and bring together people from all around the world with similar interests using Sphere. ”
He said he was shocked by the toxicity on platforms like Reddit, Facebook, Twitch, and Twitter, which has been widely criticized for its management of abuse and trolling.
The social networking site previously offered a warning that alerted users to the tone of their message and invited them to reconsider.
The platform started testing its new safety mode in September to flag accounts with hateful remarks. Mr D’Aloisio said it is really important to address the issues of hateful content from the online community.
“All groups have the potential to become genuine communities,” says D’Aloisio. “However, most groups are plagued by issues in online communication that prevent community-building – such as awkward pauses, conversations straying off track, and abuse.”
“However, we’ve discovered that if a group’s members feel their involvement is appreciated, it may develop into a community.
In recent months, Twitter has been working to grow and enhance its platform. It is another move by the social network giant to purchase Sphere.