 "This hyperlocal social network for millennials aims to one-up Facebook, Snapchat")
School socialization marches on, and Pulse – a social network designed for students aged 14 to 22 – aims to be that social safe space (no parents, no teachers) of sorts for the up-and-coming generation. It’s landed $500,000 in pre-series A funding from Saif Partners to hook students up with events and circles at their respective schools, as well as hyperlocal content in neighborhood hot spots in their city.
The startup raised $200,000 seed funding a few months back from some Indian investors – including Rajan Anandan, Rajesh Sawhney, Anupam Mittal, Uday Shankar, Anand Chandrasekaran, and Amit Ranjan.
Currently present in 60 colleges in Delhi and a smattering of other communities – including one in Bangalore – the startup plans on using the funding to expand to at least 300 more universities in the following one-and-a-half months. Targeted locations include Pune, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Manipal, Chennai, and Hyderabad, in addition to some smaller cities in the future. The company will also put the money toward ramping up its technology team.
In 2013, LinkedIn acquired another Pulse, a Stanford student-founded mobile newsreader website with social networking features.
How to Pulse
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Users can create a Pulse account by linking the Android app to their Facebook. People do have to hit an age requirement to use the app, and I ask if that works even if one has his or her age hidden on Facebook.
Pulse users will also have the option of keeping a post private to show to their “friends” (friending on Pulse works much like it does on Facebook or other social networking outlets), posting to a particular university group or locality, or making a post or video stream public across channels.