AOL's former head of video has raised money to build a Facebook-plus-Yelp-plus-Tinder for immigrants
- Homeis aspires to build a social network for immigrants.
- The startup, founded by former AOL video chief Ran Harnevo, has raised $4 million in seed funding.
- The plan is to tap into the explosion of transient populations in cities across the globe.
Ran Harnevo sold his startup 5min to AOL back in 2010. He eventually became head of AOL Video, before leaving in 2014 to run the music-centric social media app Bkstg.
Now Harnevo is back for startup number three with Homeis, which aspires to build a digital community for immigrants in cities across the globe.
Along with partner Hanan Lashover, Harnevo sees an opening to create a mobile app via which foreign-born consumers can connect with other immigrants from the same home nation.
The thinking is, these people will be able to use Homeis to find others with similar experiences, services tailored to their unique language and cultural sensibility, and maybe even a significant other down the road.
The two partners have raised $4 million for Homeis in a seed round was led by the investment firm Canaan, which features a significant number of immigrant executives. Oath CEO Tim Armstrong is also an investor.
Harnevo himself was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, but has been in the US for a decade. Over time, he has built an informal network of fellow New York-based Israelis through his career and various social connections. Now he has children born in the US.
All of which creates a duality in his identity, he said. He's very much an Israeli, a New Yorker and an American. His kids are clearly American, but he also wants them to know his homeland.
That's undoubtedly interesting. But is there a business there?
In an interview with Business Insider, Harnevo rattled off eye-opening statistics about how much global population movement there has been over the past several decades.
Not only are huge chunks of New York and Los Angeles' population not from the US, but 48% of Toronto, 38% of Sydney Australia, and 40% of London, were born in some other country. Europe in particular has seen a surge in immigration since the founding of the European Union in the 1990s.
Overall, there are 244 million transplants across the world, said Harnevo, and that number is predicted to hit half a billion by 2050.
Thus, the Homeis bet is that in each city, each community - whether French in Houston or Chinese in Bali - will want to find businesses that cater to them. Doctors that speak Hebrew. Accountants who help Spanish speakers establish credit and buy houses.
Starting in New York, the new network ideally will provide a place for people to find each other and businesses to offer services. Next down the road is likely dating, Harnevo said.
"We all find each other and share information, but it's all disconnected," he said, citing clunky Facebook groups. "This provides a unique social graph."
One with multiple business possibilities down the road - though the exact model is very much to-be-determined. Dan Ciporin, general partner at Canaan, said that for smaller social networks to succeed, "it's all about engagement. And the subject of home and identity are about as engaging as it gets.