Shine, a Brooklyn-based startup behind a conversational chatbot that sends people motivating and uplifting messages, announced today that it has raised $2.5 million in venture financing. The funding round was led by Betaworks and Eniac Ventures, with participation from Female Founders Fund, Felix Capital, Comcast Ventures, BBG Ventures and the New York Times. The company had previously raised an undisclosed amount in 2016 from Flybridge Capital Partners, BBG Ventures, and Comcast Ventures.
Shine was founded in 2015 by Marah Lidey and Naomi Hirabayashi to respond to the lack of peer-based life coaching at scale. “Gurus and the top-down approach of most wellness media don’t resonate as much as things that feel accessible and peer-based,” the two founders wrote in a company blog post. As co-workers at DoSomething.org, Lidey and Hirabayashi supported each other on everything from career growth to relationships and personal finance. When they started doing market research for Shine, the two of them were surprised to find that most people who are looking for advice to help solve personal problems resort to Google search or professional coaches. They created Shine to provide a supportive friend in a pocket.
By simply signing up with a name, an email address, and phone numbers, users can instantaneously start receiving motivational texts to help them improve their lives and work. From sending inspiring quotations to providing goal reminders and confidence boosters, Shine curates all kinds of wellness and other personal tips and advice. Like other chatbots, Shine personalizes its conversation with each user based on individual inputs. Users are able to specify areas in which they need encouragement and can configure times during the day when they need “pep talks.”
Shine’s target audience is millennials, especially millennial women. At a time when Instagram and Snapchat permeate every aspect of young adults’ lives, Shine chose a traditional medium — SMS. According to the co-founders, text messages consistently have the highest open rates among communications vehicles, and they also have tremendous power to drive user growth. Prior to launching Shine, Hirabayashi served as CMO and Lidey as Director of Mobile Product at DoSomething.org, the popular nonprofit organization for millennials to do social good. It was at DoSomething.org that Lidey and Hirabayashi became expert at using testing as a platform for user acquisition — in fact, 3 million of the 5 million users of DoSomething.org are SMS users. While Shine is primarily a texting experience, it is also available on Facebook Messenger and chatting app Kik.
According to the two founders, Shine has attracted such celebrity users as Kristen Bell, Lilly Singh, JoJo, and, purportedly, Hillary Clinton. The company currently has more than half a million active users.