New social app funded by Leonardo Di Caprio wants you to have multiple personalities

Freakish science experiment or a neo Andy Warhol?

There’s a new social app launching today backed by Leonardo Di Caprio, Tencent co-founder Vic Lee, and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. Its premise is as grand as the roster of backers. It’s called Galaxia.

“I believe that the social game is far from being over and there’s always room to innovate,” says Moshe Hogeg, the founder of Galaxia. “Galaxia is a mix of messaging groups and social networks that enables a more natural social experience by offering users a complete freedom of expression in all their worlds. We’re trying to build a platform that will allow us to be who we want to be, in each context.”

Most social networks restrict who we truly are.

If you’re confused, as I was initially, then Moshe explains further. He says humans have multifaceted personalities and we bring out a specific side depending on the contextual environment. Hence, we’re a different person with our friends, families, partners, and colleagues. However, most social networks don’t allow for this varied distinction of expression and thought, forcing us to be a shadow of who we truly are.

Galaxia understands this innate nature of our personality and curates different “worlds” where we are free to be whoever we want to be. Users are required to maintain one master account that contains, separately, all the “personas” they’d like to have. Each persona can then create worlds that other users are also able to join. Public worlds have no restriction on the number of members and are open to all. Users can also create private worlds for more intimate conversations, and set rules for the types of content members are allowed to share. Some worlds may also have a membership fee, but the startup says it’s likely that only celebrity accounts and other influencers will use that privilege.

Worldly matters

It seems Galaxia is mimicking the strategy adopted by Line, which charges celebrities and brands to maintain official accounts. However, in the case of Line, it is free for users to follow those accounts to keep up to date. It’s unclear whether users will fork out hard cash for the same privilege on Galaxia given how easy it is to access free content on the web.

The startup says this is a way for community managers to monetize unique content in their “own worlds.”

Galaxia plans on monetizing from day one, Moshe explains. It’ll have various strategies to meet this rather lofty goal, and will not rely solely on “user experience through advertisements.”

Given the involvement of Vic Lee, it is fair to assume that the app – built by parent company Mobli – is also aimed at capturing the Chinese market. Lee himself said that Mobli is “one of the most promising companies he’s seen,” and that it has “potential to disrupt and transform large sectors of the Chinese market.”