For BeReal, it’s time to get real – it’s hard to make a profit on a photo-sharing app without selling ads or memberships. Now, after a €500 million sale to French mobile publisher Voodoo, BeReal is rolling out advertising activities in the United States.
Initial products include in-feed display ads in the same style as dual-camera posts, as well as all-day brand campaigns. The app has already tested ads with companies such as Levi’s, Nike, Netflix, and Amazon, but will now launch a full-fledged advertising platform in the US.
The company has appointed Ben Moore, who previously worked at TikTok, to lead the US team focused on sales, partnerships, and growth.
In an effort to attract advertisers, BeReal told TechCrunch that it has approximately 40 million monthly active users, with 5 million monthly active users in the United States. Overall, BeReal claims that 85% of its users are Generation Z. The app also claims that in the U.S., France, and Japan – its largest markets – 50% of users are active six days a week. (TechCrunch was unable to independently verify these figures.)
Today, the app faces the challenge of staying relevant in a competitive social environment where fashion trends come and go.
Founded in 2019, the ephemeral social app only gained popularity in 2022 after raising $30 million in a Series A round from a16z and Accel. Even Meta and TikTok sought to capitalize on BeReal’s virality.
By October 2022, app analytics company Sensor Tower estimated that 53 million people had downloaded the app, although only about 9% of active Android users opened it every day. The app became a cultural milestone when it was parodied on SNL the same month.
According to third-party analytics company Appfigures, BeReal has been downloaded 115 million times on iOS and Android to date, with 33% of those downloads coming from the US. But over the past few years, downloads have slowed down compared to the viral moment. In 2023, the number of downloads worldwide was approximately 31.5 million, down 60% from the previous year, to 12.7 million in 2024.
