Communia bets social media can be good for you

Olivia DeRamus is flipping the script: What if scrolling through social media didn’t make us miserable? What if, especially for women, social media could actually make us feel more supported?

“It’s certainly not what mainstream social platforms have been built for,” DeRamus told TechCrunch. But with her social platform Communia, DeRamus is daring to try something that seems counterintuitive.

Communia is both a social platform and a mental health tool; you can post updates in a community feed, or you can privately journal and track your emotions over time. But for users to get vulnerable, they need to feel safe. So, the platform is taking an approach that could polarize some, but could reassure others: People must verify their identity before they can fully use the app.

“It’s a safety feature, but it also kind of sets the tone that this is an intimate space and that you’re safe here,” she said. “So people feel more empowered to talk about their PMDD, or to talk about the difficult life experience they’re going through.”

DeRamus used to work in the nonprofit sector, focused on women’s anti-violence efforts. But she pivoted to tech because she knew first-hand how valuable a supportive online platform could be. When DeRamus was in college, she was sexually assaulted. In a time when opening up to her friends was a challenge, she sought out online communities to help her process her experience.

“I turned to social media because I was trying to figure out what even was happening to me,” she said. “It was pre-MeToo … Where are women even having conversations around sexual assault?”

With Communia, DeRamus is creating the app that she needed at that time. “We don’t have all the answers at Communia, but even at our tiny, tiny amount of funding, with our tiny fraction of resources, the solutions to many of the internet’s issues are oftentimes more simple than big tech platforms would like us to believe,” she said.

And since she isn’t a typical tech founder, DeRamus isn’t using the typical tech playbook. “I’m aware that in tech, most people go very far without knowing how they’re going to make money, and I know BeReal was acquired recently, and they never figured it out,” she said. “That’s not the pathway for Communia, so we really wanted to take our time not only in building a better digital world for women, but also in building a more sustainable type of tech product.”

So, Communia’s plan to monetize is to onboard creators. The idea is that fans could pay to access more intimate communities with creators they know, where the emphasis is on the group’s connections as a whole, rather than their specific relationship to that creator.

To figure out its creator strategy, Communia brought on ex-OnlyFans CEO Amrapali Gan as a strategic partner and growth adviser.

“We’ve been getting to know each other for about a year now. I actually slid into her DMs, cold, no intro, and she responded to me. We met up, and over time, she was advising us on a number of different things,” DeRamus said. “We realized that she felt really passionate about our mission, and that she was helping us in so many aspects of the business that it made sense to bring her on in a formal role that was much more than a traditional adviser.”

Gan worked at OnlyFans as CMO, and then CEO, in a time when the platform was explosive with growth. Like Communia, Gan emphasized safety in her time at OnlyFans. As a platform most associated with adult content, OnlyFans uses a digital identity platform called Yoti that prevents minors from signing up. Gan left OnlyFans last year to found Hoxton, a creative agency working with startups.

“Her expertise is really allowing us to make even better decisions and grow faster, but also handle a lot of difficult questions that come up for any social media platform with her expertise,” DeRamus said.

Communia remains a relatively green platform. The app participated in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield 200 in 2023, but has taken a slow approach to building out the platform. DeRamus hasn’t marketed the platform much, but perhaps Gan’s involvement will change that. Slow growth makes sense for a platform like Communia, though, because its entire premise could deteriorate if it lacks the content moderation capabilities to grow at scale without sacrificing safety. Communia is embarking on its first institutional fundraise now, with the hope that extra funds could help navigate safe growth.