Applications
Medial app raises $120K for startup social network
Mumbai: Medial app, a professional social media platform purpose-built for the start-up ecosystem, has raised $120K in a pre-seed funding round. The round was led by FirstCheque VC and saw participation from notable angels from Bangalore, Mumbai, and the US including names like Nayan Jadeja, Rohitashwa Choudhary, Ankit Aggarwal, Radhakrishnan Ramachandran and others.
Founded and led by the leadership of Niket Raj Dwivedi, Aishwarya Raj Pandey, Prateek Kaien, and Harsh Dwivedi, Medial App aims to reshape the professional social networking landscape by centring its offerings around professionals’ real learning and growth in the start-up ecosystem. At the heart of its mission is a content and community-driven platform that fosters a vibrant community across diverse tech, product, and UI/UX domains. It serves as a hub of start-up news, industry updates, banters, and advice in a non-clickbaity fashion to add value for its community, and enable transparent and inclusive workplace conversations.
Expressing his gratitude and sharing his mission, Medial app founder & CEO Niket Raj Dwivedi said, “We’re excited with the early belief of our investors in our vision. We are working super hard to ensure our users get the exact experience that has been missing from most professional social media platforms and bridge the gap that younger folks feel on these company-centric, influence-catering age-old networks. Medial is designed to be a meaningful content and consumption-led professional network instead of a thoughtless connection-led network. We are working towards creating a world-class company-profiling suite and a job board which is responsive within a strict timeline so that candidates are not left hanging after applying to jobs, and allowing companies to showcase themselves better to prospective talent.”
Medial App enjoys a beta-stage user base of over 5,000 and is set for an official launch by the end of January 2024. The platform aims to evolve into the go-to professional social platform for growth-driven individuals within the start-up/tech ecosystem, gradually expanding its horizons to accommodate more profiles and industries.
Prateek Agarwal from FirstCheque remarked, “Niket and the team have the right mix to solve the social media problems of today. They want to purify the experience by helping people read unique content and also share their perspectives without the fear of being judged.”
Medial App plans to deploy the raised capital to primarily fuel product development, user acquisition, and testing of core app features. With promising initial beta app metrics showing great D30 retention and stickiness, the leadership focuses on feature enhancement and the product’s official launch.
Applications
With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
