After the Allen & Co 2024 Conference in Sun Valley Idaho, it became clear that we have no viable alternative to the largest dominating social platform, which for the first time did not arise from Silicon Valley but instead from China.
We have several insights as to why this poses a national security threat (
see here) despite the public not knowing the intricate details as to why. Friends in Congress expressed that TikTok was unwilling to compromise and would not sell the algorithm.
For the last two years we sought to work on a secret internal project called “SocialRank” that is built upon the learnings of the TikTok algorithm and is meant to emulate the success of
PageRank.
Today we are making this public.
SocialRank
offers a compelling alternative, and while we can’t publicly go into detail as to what is powering the algorithm, we can say that it is not dissimilar to TikTok’s and perhaps even better poised due to graph scaling, allowing for deeper and richer embeddings between users.
As well, we developed a novel from the ground-up design for a mobile app that does not take from any other pre-existing platforms, and we now feel comfortable in saying that we are confident we can offer a compelling alternative originating from the U.S. and not China.
Video is capital intensive and presents immense challenges.
Launching a new platform of this scale meant coming in at 150-200 million,
just to launch. This is based on the learnings of Meta launching threads which was in the range of 100-200 million and was strictly text based.
Here we present three documents, two discussing the algorithm (one technical and one non-technical), and the third showing the design elements of the mobile app, including its user interface, layout, and visual assets. These are original works that will be eligible for copyright protection ensuring we will have legal safeguards against infringement.
We are also providing a
detailed write-up of the technical aspects of the algorithm to those who ask.
Due to the urgency in launching in order to capture those billion plus users, we have decided to spin out this newly established venture and raise capital for it on the order of 150 million USD. The financing round will support the newly formed company in executing against its roadmap and building a robust “T-algorithm”. The yet to be named venture will use the funding for computationally intensive video ranking and hosting to develop a large audience with the expectation of reaching 1 billion users.
“We are currently in discussions with several investors who have expressed significant interest in participating in this round. While no formal commitments have been made at this time, we are optimistic based on the level of engagement and positive feedback we have received” states Davis, founder of D-FO.
Our founder adds “In addition, we are targeting raising upwards of 150 million USD in venture capital, offering around 10-15% equity in the yet to be established company. This round would value the company at over 900 million USD. We are actively working towards this goal and are in discussions with several interested parties.”
We expect to have fulfilled commitments by the end of 2024 and launch by the end of April 2025.
To set up a meeting, please contact
Zoe@d-fo.com (Executive Assistant to the CEO) or
John@d-fo.com (Chief of Staff)
