Deal highlights

• A visual organization tool designed to help you think and create
• No ads, no likes, no invasive recommendations
• Buy a real stake in Are.na's future with as little as $100
• 370% growth in paying members in 2017
• 102% growth in total registered users in 2017 
• 60% growth in total registered users in Q1 2018
• Used by creatives at Apple, Calvin Klein, Nike, Tumblr, Dropbox, MoMA, Yale, MIT, Columbia, RISD + more
• On track to cover current burn rate in 2018

The Problem

The apps we use every day kill creative thinking.

Creative people and knowledge workers rely on a mix of social and productivity apps to come up with new ideas. But instead of helping, these tools actually make it harder to concentrate and create.

Productivity apps provide structure, but they let notifications, tasks, and information overload get in the way of creative thinking. Social media has valuable information, but it’s noisy and distracting. Most networks are designed to hijack our attention and show us more ads — not to help us find what we need.

Creative thinkers need a tool and a space where they can organize their ideas and make new things together.

The Solution

A visual platform that helps you have ideas

Are.na is a knowledge sharing platform that combines the creative back-and-forth of social media with the focus of a productivity tool — stripping away distractions to let you focus on your ideas.

 On Are.na, there are no ads, likes, or recommendations to get in your way. It’s a more mindful space where you can work through any project over time.

The Product

“Creativity is just connecting things.” 
- Steve Jobs

Are.na lets you build simple, visual collections by adding links and files of any kind. It’s the only platform designed to help you learn by connecting ideas with other people.

• Save and organize images, documents, video, quotes, links, and more.

• Arrange ideas visually in a distraction-free space

• Connect other users’ content to your own collections

• Share collections privately or build public collections with everyone

How it works 

1. Add anything to Are.na from your phone, browser, or desktop. Content is organized in simple collections called channels.

2. Save other users’ discoveries to your own channels. Explore related topics by following connections between channels.

3. Build channels together with collaborators. The entire Are.na community is your knowledge base.

Traction

60% growth in 2018 to date

Are.na is quickly building a base of loyal members who want to spend their time online more mindfully and more effectively. The Are.na community now has 40,000 total members, and we’ve grown by nearly two thirds in 2018 to date.  Active users invite an average of three other people to join.

Quarterly connections made on Are.na:

We measure usage by the number of connections our members make. A connection is any new piece of content a user adds to the platform or links from one channel to another.

 Invest in Are.na

 What people are saying

Business Model

Are.na already has a sustainable revenue stream

Are.na relies on a freemium membership model. Free accounts are limited to 100 private pieces of content. More privacy for professional projects requires an upgrade:

Are.na Premium ($5 / month or $45 / year):

• Unlimited private content
• Access to personalized support
• Hide from search engines

Over 6% of active users currently pay for Premium, translating to $10,000 of revenue in Q1 2018. Premium memberships already more than cover the cost of all site infrastructure. 

Growth in Premium memberships is on track to generate over $40,000 in Q4 2018 . We project that revenue will grow to cover all current expenses and salaries by Q4 2018. A new business product launching in Q2 2018 will help us get there.

Revenue has been consistently proportional to the number of active users as we grow. This allows us to make a linear projection:

Market

Uniquely suited to serve today’s knowledge workers 

A growing cohort of freelancers needs more effective ideation tools and wants more genuine interactions online. These are creative thinkers who require a lightweight tool for personal knowledge management.

Are.na is the only social network that connects you to other people without taking over your life. Engagement on Are.na means connecting information, not mindlessly “liking.” Are.na members spend 10 minutes per session on the platform — compared to 9.6 minutes for Reddit, 5.8 for Tumblr, 5 for Facebook, and 3 for Twitter according to Statista.

Total addressable market

15 million workers at the core of the U.S. “creative class” are our beta audience, and unlocking that group means we can address a global market of 230 million knowledge workers who don’t have the ideation tools they need.

Used by professionals at:

Used by students and educators at:

What's next

Team ideation tools for effortless knowledge sharing 

Are.na is launching a team product in Q2 2018 for small businesses and enterprise clients. Think Slack for your team’s ideas.

Business pricing and support will likely generate immediate revenue from those teams and facilitate sales to larger clients. There’s a built-in demand for team features among our members: 200+ accounts already use Are.na with other members of an organization.

Product roadmap:

Mission

Are.na’s mission is to build a member-supported community for shared knowledge, collaborative thinking, and lifelong learning.

As a mission-driven business, we’re choosing to crowdfund Are.na’s future so that we can grow in a way that lines up with our values. We won’t accept investments that will force us to compromise on our core beliefs, and we will never abuse the trust of our members by selling ads or personal data.

We believe that our members and like-minded people should be stakeholders in Are.na’s future. Equity crowdfunding will allow us to scale at a sustainable pace while making an ownership stake available to anyone who shares our vision.

Founders

Led by artists, designers, and creative entrepreneurs

Invest in a better Internet

We're building a new kind of platform for a more curious and collaborative Internet. Invest now to own an equity stake in Are.na.