IRL
Social appUSA
New to Unitard
💀 Dead / Bankrupt
Peak $1.17 BillionToday
~-100%
from peak
- 🦄Became a unicorn2021
- 📈Peak valuation$1.17 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a UnitardJun 2023
- 💸Last valuationWiped out
🔥 Raised & burned
$200M
Total raised
$78.7K/day
Burned · 7.0y alive
Funding: Fortune/Forbes
Current status
Shut down June 2023 (95% bot users alleged)
The rise & fall
5 moments · 2016–2024The key moments.
2016
2016
Founded
Abraham Shafi's social app for organizing events with friends — 'In Real Life.'
TechCrunch
2021
2021
The peak: a $1.17B SoftBank round$1.17B
SoftBank leads a round valuing the group-messaging app at ~$1.17B on claims of 20 million monthly users.
TechCrunch
2023
2023
The CEO is suspended as the board investigates
The user numbers don't add up; an internal probe begins.
TechCrunch
Jun 2023
Jun 2023
Shuts down — joins the Unitard Club 💔
The investigation concludes about 95% of claimed users were bots; the board shuts the app and returns the remaining cash to investors.
TechCrunch
2024
2024
The SEC charges the founder with fraud
Regulators allege investors in the unicorn round were misled about the app's growth.
SEC
$1.17Bof peak value erased · 7 years
How it happened
IRL was a U.S. social/events app that raised a SoftBank-led round in 2021 at a ~$1.17B valuation. An internal investigation found that the vast majority of its claimed users were bots (allegedly ~95%), and the company shut down in June 2023, with its board returning remaining cash to investors.
Source: TechCrunch
Where they went
- Abraham Shafifounder & CEOInvestor at Memyard
Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-21. See our methodology.
