Peanut, a social network originally for moms but now for all women, raises $12M Series A led by EQT Ventures, bringing the total raised to $21.8M
Context & Ripple Effects
Peanut's $12M Series A lands two weeks before Chief's $15M raise, making May 2020 the month investors funded two different takes on women-focused social networks — Peanut broadening from its mom-only origins to all women, Chief staying exclusive to senior professional women. The round also extends a funding pattern from Ellevest's $33M Series A the year prior, where venture capital backed products built specifically around women rather than general-purpose platforms.
First-order effects
- EQT Ventures' lead gives Peanut the capital to execute its pivot from a mothers' network to one serving women across life stages, testing whether its community mechanics hold beyond the original use case.
Second-order effects
- Peanut now competes directly with Chief for the same audience and the same investor thesis — a contest Chief escalated by later raising a $100M Series B at a $1.1B valuation, setting the funding bar any women-focused network must clear.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — niche networks like Peanut and Chief raising successive rounds while Farmers Business Network proved a paid vertical community could take a $110M Series D — social networking fragments into purpose-built communities rather than consolidating around general-purpose feeds.
The trend: Venture capital is increasingly funding identity- and stage-specific social networks over general-purpose ones, with women-focused platforms among the best-capitalized examples.