Spoony, an award-winning Australian social media app centered on the disabled and neurodivergent group, will shut down as buyers flip their focus from ‘conventional’ tech startups to synthetic intelligence.
Based in 2024 as an alternative choice to the likes of Fb, Instagram, and X, Spoony is a social media app serving to customers bond over their shared experiences.
The startup raised $1 million to fuel its early expansion and now counts greater than 65,000 customers throughout the disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically unwell communities.
However cofounder and CEO Nicholas Carlton says Spoony is ready to shut by the top of Might after its deliberate October 2025 funding spherical fell via.
Carlton mentioned Spoony adopted the ‘develop first, monetise’ later mannequin, which has fallen out of favour with buyers now prioritising profitability.
“Within the two years that I’ve been engaged on Spoony, the surroundings has actually modified so much,” he mentioned.
“The sands have shifted, in a manner, and I believe there’s an expectation now from buyers that you’re monetising a lot, a lot earlier.”
Promoting — the lifeblood of conventional social media — solely is sensible as soon as platforms go 1,000,000 customers, mentioned Carlton.
“I’m dissatisfied that we haven’t had the chance to develop into that,” he mentioned.
Spoony explored different avenues. It referred customers to speech pathologists, or medical doctors able to administering ADHD and autism assessments, in a mannequin Carlton referred to as “actually profitable”.
Nevertheless, pursuing these alternatives additional would have turned Spoony right into a fully-fledged digital well being enterprise.
“We very a lot needed to remain as a light-weight expertise firm that was bringing individuals collectively,” he mentioned.
Turning down AI in market frenzy
One other turning level got here when Spoony experimented with a digital therapist powered by synthetic intelligence.
That mannequin proved in style amongst some Spoony customers, even because it pulled the startup farther from its core ethos.
“I obtained actually involved in regards to the relationships individuals had been forming with humanised AI, and so it felt, ultimately, fairly antithetical to what Spoony was, which was connecting two individuals collectively,” mentioned Carlton.
Eschewing synthetic intelligence — not simply within the chatbot, however when setting up the Spoony app itself — proved difficult for the startup when it sought additional funding.
“A number of buyers in all probability would have most well-liked that we had been hooking individuals up with AI mates,” he mentioned.
“You possibly can see that quite a lot of the funding has gone in the direction of AI companions and AI mates. That’s form of very a lot the place the VC focus is correct now.”
And Spoony’s heterodox strategy to AI confirmed when it gained a Good Design Award final yr, main Carlton to have fun “fiercely human” design within the “period of AI slop”.
The startup is now pursuing the sale of its belongings to an acquirer, probably an current digital well being enterprise, that seeks a group component.
With out that type of sale, the Spoony platform will wind down by the top of Might.
Reflecting on the startup’s trajectory, Carlton mentioned he hoped buyers will again future innovation within the incapacity sector.
“That half saddens me, that we simply weren’t capable of get there.”
