BeReal is a French messaging company that launched its app in 2020 and had the meaning of creating an online space where you can be you. The app was created by Alexis Barreyat and Kevin Perreau with the ability to notify users daily about sharing photo with their friends daily. "Founded in 2019, BeReal revolutionized social media by fostering genuine connections. It answered the need by Gen Z to escape the highly curated façade imposed by other platforms and express their true self.", posted Alex Yazdi, CEO of VooDoo, on Press Start.
This week, the app was acquired for €500 million by Voodoo, the French mobile app and games company. With the acquisition, the co-founder and CEO of BeReal, Alexis Barreyat, will be stepping out of the position and the company after the transition period. Instead, the position of CEO will be occupied by Aymeric Roffe, the CEO of one of Voodoo’s social media apps, who will come to fill the position for BeReal.
The app grew rapidly during the pandemic when everyone had to stay isolated, and the “reality trend” came into our social media spectrum. As of now, BeReal has 40 million active users, but the app has encountered some difficulties in its growth. Even more so, the company looking for possible buyers.
“BeReal achieved incredible user loyalty and growth, showing there is a universal need to share real, unfiltered experiences with close friends,” said Alexandre Yazdi, the CEO, and Co-founder of VooDoo “We are very excited to bring our teams together and leverage Voodoo’s know-how and differentiated technologies to scale BeReal into the iconic social network for authenticity.”.
BeReal monthly active users number suffered a drastic drop from 15 million monthly active users to 6 million monthly active users from October 2022 to March 2023. However, since then the app tried to regain its audience and introduced new features such as private groups, and “bonus” BeReal where you can post more than once a day. The app even launched a RealPeople feed in February, where brands and celebrities can post from their reality.
BeReal was seeking possible refounding or looking into the opportunity of selling after this March the app was dealing with the growth of the company. Voodoo stated about its latest acquisition, “the opportunity to further innovate around new features and refocus on growth.”.