Airbuds is the kind of music-focused social platform that Apple and Spotify would have loved to create themselves

A fresh social platform has been rapidly gaining popularity among Gen Z and younger users, and it doesn’t come from Meta.

Airbuds, a company based in San Francisco, has developed a mobile app that allows users to showcase their musical tastes socially. With a smartphone widget compatible with various streaming platforms, people can let friends see what they’re listening to in real time.

On Wednesday, Airbuds revealed it had secured $5 million in funding, led by Seven Seven Six, an early-stage VC firm established by Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

The app has surpassed 15 million downloads and now boasts 5 million monthly users, with 1.5 million launching it every day. According to app analytics firm Appfigures, Airbuds has achieved a 96% positive rating in the past month, across more than 9,400 user reviews.

For its users, the app provides a space to connect with friends, express themselves, and find new music—all within a single platform.

Major music platforms like Apple and Spotify haven’t managed to combine these elements successfully. Apple has repeatedly tried to add social features to its music apps, starting with the failed Ping network in the early 2010s, followed by Connect, which aimed to link artists and fans but was also discontinued.

Spotify has been enhancing its social capabilities with features such as TikTok-style feeds, user comments, polls, podcast Q&As, artist stories, collaborative playlists, messaging, and more.

But neither platform has managed to create a truly engaging social music network, as appealing to consumers in this way is often complex and unpredictable.

Luckily, Airbuds’ co-founders Gilles Poupardin and Gawen Arab have had the chance to refine their vision over time.

Poupardin’s journey in building consumer-focused products began during college, with projects like a music bookmarking service similar to Pinterest, a voice-activated smart speaker (preceding Amazon’s Echo), and a social audio app called Cappuccino that allowed friends to create short podcasts together. Arab collaborated with Poupardin on the smart speaker and later joined Zenly, a social app company that Snap acquired for $350 million in 2017.

After the Cappuccino team sold their app and intellectual property to a meditation company called Sociaaal, the founders pivoted to creating a widget-based app, which led to Airbuds.

“From my experience designing music products, I realized that asking users to build playlists or engage deeply can be a big ask,” Poupardin told TechCrunch. He noticed the growing popularity of iOS widgets among teenagers and was inspired to create a widget that would display friends’ current music choices.

“It takes almost no effort—you simply link your Spotify account, and whatever you play is instantly visible to friends on Airbuds,” he explained.

Currently, Airbuds integrates with Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, Musi, Deezer, Amazon Music, and Audiomack.

While the widget remains at the heart of Airbuds, the app has expanded to include a variety of social tools.

Users can interact with friends’ music choices using emojis, stickers, or even selfies with backgrounds removed. The feed allows users to sample friends’ tracks and chat through a simple messaging system. If you prefer privacy while listening, a “ghost mode” lets you hide your activity until you turn it off.

Airbuds can also highlight friends with similar music preferences and creates a personalized Weekly Recap of your listening habits, much like a smaller version of Spotify Wrapped. The app is also testing a feature that allows users to join their school’s community to view top artists among classmates.

Users have the option to personalize their profile, or “Space,” by adding favorite artists, tracks, albums, lyrics, photos, text, and more—or let the app generate a design automatically.

This personal expression element is a major driver for Airbuds, according to Poupardin, with roughly 30% of users engaging with features beyond simply sharing what they’re listening to.

He noted that while music streaming platforms offer access to millions of tracks, none have truly addressed identity and self-expression. That’s where Airbuds stands out, especially for its user base of high school and college students in the U.S., though it’s also making inroads in the U.K., Australia, Brazil, and Mexico.

Some of Airbuds’ popularity can be attributed to its feature-locking approach, which encourages users to invite friends in order to unlock certain functions. For instance, inviting friends is required to see more than your top three artists in the recap. However, Poupardin emphasizes that this is essential for the app’s core experience, not just for growth, since adding friends is key to how Airbuds works.

With its latest funding, Airbuds plans to grow further, possibly by integrating additional streaming services, facilitating artist-fan interactions, or adding features to appeal to older audiences. The team is also piloting a subscription option.

So far, the company has raised a total of $10 million from backers such as a16z, SV Angel, Dream Machine, Nikita Bier, Antoine Martin, Uncommon, and Night Capital.

Airbuds can be downloaded on both iOS and Android devices.