Snitch, a London start-up whose app lets friends cut their screen time together, has raised £1.25M in pre-seed funding led by Eka Ventures.
Most screen-time tools leave it to the individual to stick to their own limits, and most people simply override them. Snitch's founders, heavy phone users themselves, built the company on the view that accountability to friends works where willpower does not.
Users join groups and each adds a personal limit to a shared pot of time. Every minute anyone spends on a chosen app draws the pot down for the whole group, and the apps lock once it runs out. Overriding a lock is visible to friends, and extra time needs the group's approval. The app runs on iOS and Android.
Snitch has passed 65,000 downloads without spending on marketing, and its users have clawed back four million hours of screen time, according to The Times. In June the team won the £15,000 top prize at WE Innovate, Imperial College London's competition for women-led start-ups.
The company was founded by Imperial design engineering graduates Asha Bakhai, its chief executive, Serena Sebastian and Yoshiki Connor Berrecloth. Eka Ventures, a London firm that backs early-stage consumer technology companies, leads the round. Other participants and plans for the money were not disclosed.
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