Social App IRL, Which Raised $200 Million, Shuts Down After CEO Misconduct Probe

Last year, the CEO of messaging app IRL repeatedly said it had 20 million monthly active users, who chatted about shared interests and planned real-world events together. Today, a spokesperson for the startup said an investigation by the board of directors concluded 95% of those users were “automated or from bots.”

As a result of the probe, the spokesperson said the company would shut down and return capital to shareholders, two months after it suspended the founder and CEO, Abraham Shafi, for alleged misconduct. IRL raised $200 million from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Founders Fund and others, before coming under scrutiny in a series of articles in The Information, which questioned its user number claims.