Yale seniors Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow just raised $5.1M from Pear VC, Reddit’s Steve Huffman, and Venmo’s Iqram Magdon-Ismail
Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow are still seniors at Yale. They have also just raised $5.1 million in pre-seed funding to build Series, an AI-powered social network that runs entirely inside iMessage.
The round was backed by Pear VC alongside a roster of angels that reads more like a late-stage cap table than a college side project – Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail, Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman, and GPTZero founder Edward Tian, according to TechCrunch.
The pitch is simple. Instead of opening yet another app, users text a phone number on iMessage explaining who they are and who they want to meet. Series AI replies with “shares” – a carousel of 10 images of posts from other users looking for similar connections. Press and hold a photo, and a private conversation opens inside the same chat, without anyone trading their real number.
It’s a bet that the next social network won’t look like a social network at all.
“where you’re used to scrolling through libraries and clicking on websites versus conversing with AI or something else to quickly identify what you’re looking for,” Johnson says, describing the shift from interfaces to conversations.
How two Yale freshmen built Series
Johnson, who is studying computer science and economics, met Hargrow, a neuroscience major, during freshman year while working on a podcast at the Yale Entrepreneurial Society. The thesis came almost immediately.
“We then proceeded our freshman summer to start a business independent from the club and incorporate a company around that same thesis, using AI as a warm connection facilitator,” Johnson says.
By March 2025, they were fundraising and shipping a beta. The team grew to eight. And then came the launch video – a now-familiar story in startup folklore, except this one was filmed by undergrads on no sleep.
“We came up with the trailer idea at 1 a.m. the night before, stayed up all night to shoot the video and posted it at 3 p.m. that same day,” Johnson says. They met their first investor two days later.
The traction since has been steady. Series says students use the product across more than 750 campuses, and Johnson claims activated users retain at 82% through Day 30 – a number he compares to early Facebook’s benchmark. By fall 2025, Yale Daily News reported the platform had drawn more than 300,000 profiles.
The company has also leaned hard into unconventional marketing. In summer 2025, Series produced its own Twitch reality show, “The Series,” filmed in a Hamptons house with 12 student-entrepreneur contestants.
“If we’re going to capture attention, we have to build community in the most public way possible,” Johnson told Forbes, in remarks reported by Black Enterprise.
Why they’re staying on the East Coast – and in school
Series has recently opened beyond its college base, targeting Gen Z and professionals more broadly. Most users, per TechCrunch, are on the platform for business, with smaller pockets using it for dating or making friends. Boardy AI, another AI-driven networking startup, is circling the same space.
The new capital will go toward hiring more engineers and expanding product capabilities. After graduation, the company plans to stay on the East Coast, operating out of an office in Chelsea. For now, the founders commute roughly two hours from New Haven.
“We have built an initial network for Series amongst the Ivy League and more prominently, schools in the East Coast. Also, we have a strong belief in Silicon Alley,” Johnson says.
Neither founder has dropped out – a quietly countercultural move in a moment when investors often expect the opposite.
“Your extra time outside of your supposed obligation can be used to catapult what you’re truly meant to do,” Johnson says. “People are often so scared to make use of their extra time.”
For founders watching from their own dorm rooms, that may be the real takeaway. The pitch isn’t to leave – it’s to use the time you already have, and build something inside the channel everyone is already in.
Image credit: Series
