IRL
Vanity metrics and inflated user numbers will eventually be exposed. Investor due diligence on user quality is critical.
2017 → 2023
$170M
Social Media
USA
IdeaProof AI Failure Score
Full Analysis
IRL (In Real Life) was a social event discovery app that raised $170M, including a $150M Series C from SoftBank that valued the company at over $1B. The company claimed 20 million users. An SEC investigation revealed that 95% of users were fake—bots created to inflate growth metrics and attract investment. CEO Abraham Shafi allegedly knew about the fake users and misrepresented the data to investors. The company shut down in June 2023 and the SEC filed charges. The lesson is devastating for the startup ecosystem: when growth metrics are the primary currency for fundraising, the incentive to fabricate them becomes overwhelming without proper verification.
Could This Failure Have Been Prevented?
IdeaProof's AI validates market demand, competitive positioning, and business model viability in minutes — catching the exact issues that sank IRL.