Tribalist

Based in San Francisco, Tribalist operated as an intelligent search and discovery platform, founded in 2017 by Jon Vlassopulos. The company secured $2.1 million in a seed funding round in December 2017, with investors including Cherubic Ventures and Social Starts. Vlassopulos, who served as CEO, brought extensive experience from the mobile, entertainment, and advertising sectors, having previously founded other ventures like Tastemates and Fab.fm. His background in building businesses at the intersection of technology and entertainment shaped Tribalist's mission to address what he termed "chronological redundancy engines" in social media.

The core of Tribalist's business was a platform that aggregated, indexed, and standardized lists from publishers and users, covering entertainment and lifestyle categories such as movies, music, TV shows, and restaurants. It utilized a proprietary machine learning algorithm to make these lists searchable, saveable, and shareable. The platform was accessible via its website and mobile apps for both iOS and Android. By presenting content from established publishers alongside user-generated lists, Tribalist aimed to democratize cultural curation. The intended business model was centered on unlocking a new market for commerce and advertising tied to these curated lists, likely through affiliate marketing and sponsored content, similar in principle to platforms like Pinterest. The company targeted individuals looking for a more organized and actionable way to discover and share recommendations. The platform ceased operations around April 2021.

Keywords: list-making, social discovery, content aggregation, recommendation engine, curated lists, lifestyle search, entertainment discovery, mobile application, Jon Vlassopulos, social curation, publisher aggregation, user-generated content, affiliate marketing, sponsored content, machine learning search, Cherubic Ventures, Social Starts, consumer internet, actionable content, San Francisco startup