Secret raises US$25m, reveals new Facebook Login feature

15 Jul 2014

Secret, the iOS and Android app player that allows people to share messages anonymously within circles of friends and publicly, has raised US$25m in Series B funding and has launched new social tools, including Facebook support.

Secret is one of the fastest-growing social mediums to emerge out of Silicon Valley, California, since WhatsApp and Snapchat, mainly because it gives people the power to publish but remain anonymous.

While this no doubt presents a Pandora’s Box of ethical, moral and no doubt legal issues, you could also view it as a counter-revolution against the share-everything movement that defined the rise of Facebook and Twitter.

The app is the brainchild of ex-Google and Square tech lead David Mark Byttow and former Google+ and YouTube product manager Chrys Bader-Wechseler.

The company raised US$8.6m from a number of investors in March, and the latest US$25m Series B investment comes from Index Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Garry Tan and Alexis Ohanian, SV Angel, Fuel Capital, Ceyuan Ventures, and several other investors who wish to remain secret.

Secret’s new social features

“Six months into growing and evolving Secret, our community has shown us how much demand there is for a social network centred around honest conversations,” the Secret team said in the company’s blog.

“Whether it’s reporters in Moscow using Secret to interview Linkin Park, friends giving each other advice about their salaries or people lamenting about their (mostly) hilarious dating lives, these conversations share one thing in common: they are hard to imagine seeing anywhere else.”

Secret said it is launching two new ways of having compelling, anonymous conversations online via Secret Collections on the web and Facebook Login on Android and iOS.

Collections is a digest of the best conversations happening on Secret.

“The conversations about work, love, loss and even food that have travelled far and wide through Secret give you a sense of what people are really feeling,” Secret said.

Secret added that users have been demanding a new Facebook Login feature that gives any user the option to anonymously connect Secret to Facebook and populate their stream with Facebook friends.

“Collections and Facebook Login are just the beginning of the work we have yet to do. While the first six months were about us learning and perfecting the Secret experience, the rest of our first year will be focused on bringing Secret to more people, in more interesting ways,” the Secret team said.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com