Anomo is a dating app for introverts that allows users to mask themselves by using avatars.
Launched in February, the app is growing by 500% each month according to Mashable – turning into a social network for shy people.
Its co-founder James Sun said the app started as a location-based online dating app but it found a whole new audience and pivoted the service into something closer to a social network.
Many of the users are fleeing from Facebook and 95% of them are from the 15-2- age group.
Sun, known on the service as White Panda, said: “The innovation here is not that you’re anonymous, it’s that you’re wearing a mask.”
To join Anomo you select an avatar and tell the app your gender and age range.
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You can choose to verify your age via Facebook, but other users can’t see your Facebook profile, only your verification.
About 65% of Anomo’s users are already verified.
Members are placed into a mixed-gender group with four other users for a very casual ice breaker – a simple survey in which everyone’s answers are revealed at the same time.
Anomo takes note of your answers, and the next time you play, it tries to match you with users who answered in similar ways.
Sun told Mashable that a large portion of the teen market can be described as “pent-up introverts,” users who would “rather post pictures of tattoos or pieces of artwork than selfies.”
He said the company is closing on a $1m round of funding, after raising an initial round of $400,000 in the first half of 2013.
The app has 40,000 downloads, 4,500 daily active users and is opened 18 times a day on average, as opposed to 14 times for Facebook, Sun said.
According to user polls, the majority of users came to Anomo “to keep their privacy until they meet someone cool.”
“They want to keep their Facebook friends apart from their new friends,” co-founder Alamo said.
Anomo is available for iOS and Android devices.