Two Yale juniors just raised $3.1 million in two weeks. Their pitch was simple: social media has become a numbers game, and it's time to rebuild it around something more useful.
Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow met during their freshman year at Yale's Entrepreneurial Society. They started a podcast together. They talked about the state of social platforms and kept returning to the same frustration. The metrics were wrong. Likes, followers, engagement rates, none of it helped anyone find the right collaborator, mentor, or business partner. Johnson, now 21, put it plainly: "The problem of quantifying value online isn't a recent development. It started with Facebook back in '04." The two decided to build something different.
That decision led to Series, an AI-powered networking platform that launched in April 2025. The fundraising timeline was unusually fast. Johnson posted a trailer about Series, and within 14 days, they had closed a $3.1 million pre-seed round led by Parable, a venture firm with former Andreessen Horowitz investors. Other backers included Reddit CEO Steve Huffman. For context, this appears to be the largest venture capital raise by current Ivy League undergraduates on record.
What Series Actually Does
Series doesn't look like Facebook or LinkedIn. There are no endless feeds. There are no vanity metrics. Instead, the platform uses what the founders call "AI Friends", conversational agents that live in your iMessage and help facilitate introductions.
The core idea is straightforward. You tell the AI what you're working on or what kind of connection you need. The system analyzes that request alongside data from other users, then suggests specific people who might be relevant. The matches are based on complementary skills, shared goals, or overlapping interests. It's more deliberate than scrolling, more targeted than broadcasting your availability to hundreds of connections.
Hargrow describes it as building networks around meaningful relationships rather than follower counts. The product is currently focused on college students, starting with Yale and expanding to other universities. Harvard was added to the rollout in October 2025, complete with unconventional marketing tactics involving free matcha and a robot football fan on campus.
The technical approach here matters. Series relies on AI to surface hidden connections, but it limits the volume of introductions. The founders designed it this way intentionally. They don't want users checking the app compulsively. They want people to find someone useful, make the connection, and then go offline to work together.
The Fundraising Sprint
Raising over $3 million in 14 days is rare for any founder. For two 21-year-old college juniors, it's even more unusual. Johnson attributes the speed partly to timing. AI networking tools have investor attention right now. LinkedIn owns the professional networking space, but it hasn't changed much in years. The product feels stale to younger users who grew up with more dynamic interfaces.
But timing alone doesn't explain the raise. Investors who spoke to media outlets highlighted Johnson's clarity. He wasn't pitching a vague vision of disruption. He was describing a specific problem that millions of people experience: online metrics don't translate to real-world value. His proposed solution was concrete enough to prototype and test.
The round's lead investor, Parable, focuses on early-stage companies with former partners from Andreessen Horowitz. Getting Reddit's CEO involved signals something else, validation from someone who has built and scaled a major social platform. Huffman knows what works and what doesn't in community-driven networks.
Two Founders, Parallel Paths
Johnson and Hargrow are both Black founders in an industry where representation remains low. They've been open about that dynamic. In interviews, they've talked about navigating rooms where they're often the only people who look like them. Johnson said he hopes younger students see their success and realize it's possible. "I can see my childhood self looking up to me," he told Entrepreneur magazine.
The two met through Yale's Entrepreneurial Society, which gave them early exposure to startup culture. They co-hosted a podcast before Series, which helped them develop their thinking about networks and value creation online. That podcast became a testing ground for ideas. It also gave them practice pitching concepts and refining their message.
Their partnership appears to split responsibilities naturally. Johnson handles much of the public-facing work and investor relations. Hargrow focuses more on product and operations. Neither of them has dropped out of Yale. They're managing a venture-backed startup while finishing their degrees, which means late nights and constant tradeoffs between coursework and company building.
The LinkedIn Problem
LinkedIn has 900 million users. It dominates professional networking. But ask anyone under 30 how they feel about the platform, and you'll hear complaints. The feed is full of performative content. Connection requests come from strangers with no clear reason for connecting. Job searches feel like shouting into a void.
Series isn't trying to replace LinkedIn outright. The founders are smarter than that. They're carving out a different use case: collaboration discovery. LinkedIn is where you post your resume and signal availability. Series is where you find the specific person who can help you build something.
That distinction matters for positioning. LinkedIn optimizes for reach and visibility. Series optimizes for relevance and fit. One measures success in connection counts. The other measures it in collaborations formed.
The challenge will be scale. LinkedIn's network effects are massive. The more people on the platform, the more valuable it becomes. Series is starting small, focusing on college students at elite universities. That's a reasonable wedge strategy, but expanding beyond that initial user base will require careful execution.
Product Design Choices
Series makes design choices that run counter to most social platforms. Limited introductions. No public follower counts. No algorithmic feed designed to maximize time spent on the app. These decisions reflect a philosophical stance: engagement metrics optimized for advertising revenue don't serve users well.
The AI component is the most interesting part. Matching people based on complementary skills requires understanding context at a deeper level than keyword matching. If someone says they're "looking for a cofounder," the AI needs to figure out what kind of cofounder, what skills are needed, what stage the project is at. That's a harder problem than showing someone content they might like.
The founders have talked about early versions of the product that felt too automated. Users received introductions that looked relevant on paper but lacked nuance. They've since refined the models to capture more contextual information. It's an ongoing challenge. Balancing automation with personalization is difficult, especially at scale.
Building While Learning
Running a startup while finishing college is not new. Mark Zuckerberg did it. So did Evan Spiegel. But most founders who succeed at that level eventually choose one or the other. Johnson and Hargrow are still in the phase where they're doing both.
Classmates describe them as disciplined but stretched thin. There are tradeoffs. Campus events get skipped. Social time gets compressed. Sleep becomes negotiable. The upside is that being in school keeps them connected to their target users. They're building for college students while still being college students.
That proximity to the user base is valuable during early product development. They can test features, gather feedback, and iterate quickly. The risk is burnout. Managing investor expectations, hiring engineers, setting company culture, and finishing coursework is a lot for anyone, let alone two 21-year-olds.
Market Positioning and Competition
Series faces competition from multiple directions. LinkedIn has the professional space locked down. Facebook and Instagram dominate social connection. Newer platforms like BeReal and Gas have carved out niches with younger users by emphasizing authenticity over curation.
The founders position Series as the "anti-Facebook," which is good marketing but also sets expectations. Being anti-something works as a rallying cry, but it doesn't explain what you're for. The clearer positioning is probably "collaboration discovery platform." It's less catchy but more accurate.
There's also the question of business model. LinkedIn generates revenue through subscriptions and advertising. Series hasn't publicly detailed its monetization strategy yet. Johnson has said that if they build something people value, the business model will follow. That's standard founder optimism, but it's also a real challenge. Subscription models work when users get clear, ongoing value. Advertising models work when you have scale and engagement. Series is deliberately limiting engagement, which makes advertising less attractive.
The Broader Context
Series launched into a moment when people are questioning the design of social platforms. Meta faces ongoing criticism about Instagram's effects on teen mental health. Twitter's transformation under Elon Musk has driven users to alternatives like Bluesky and Threads. TikTok faces regulatory pressure. There's a broader sense that the current generation of social platforms has created more problems than they've solved.
Johnson and Hargrow are part of the first generation to grow up entirely within the ecosystem created by Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. They've lived with these platforms their entire adult lives. That gives them a different perspective than the founders who built those original networks. They know what's broken because they've experienced it directly.
Whether Series can scale beyond elite college campuses remains an open question. Network effects favor incumbents. Building a new social platform from scratch is extremely hard. Most fail. But the early traction and fundraising success suggest that investors believe there's an opening here.
What Comes Next
Series is still in its opening phase. The product is live at Yale and Harvard. The team is planning expansion to other universities. The long-term vision is broader than college students, but that's the wedge. If they can prove the model works in a controlled environment, expansion becomes easier.
The founders have been careful not to overpromise. They're not claiming to reinvent social media. They're not saying they'll replace LinkedIn. They're focused on solving a specific problem for a specific user base. That's a pragmatic approach, especially for first-time founders.
The next 12 months will be telling. Can they maintain product quality while scaling? Can they convert early users into active, engaged members who see real value? Can they hire the right team while still finishing their degrees? These are execution challenges, not vision challenges.
Johnson's bet is that AI can make connections more human, not less. It's a counterintuitive claim. Most people worry that AI will make relationships more transactional. But if the technology can help you find the right collaborator faster, if it can surface connections you wouldn't have made otherwise, maybe it does serve a human need.
The story of Series is still being written. Two Yale students saw a gap in how people connect online. They built something to fill that gap. They raised money quickly. Now they have to deliver. That's the hard part. Building a successful company requires more than a good idea and fast fundraising. It requires relentless execution, smart hiring, and the ability to adapt when things don't work.
But if Johnson and Hargrow can pull it off, they won't just have built a successful startup. They'll have proven that even in a space dominated by giants, there's still room for new approaches. That's worth paying attention to.
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