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We all want to feel like we belong somewhere. In today\u2019s connected world, one-fifth of adults in the U.S. are online \u201calmost constantly,\u201d according to Pew Research Center<\/a>. But the internet can be a lonely place. Although \u201csocial\u201d media sites like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter exist, it can be hard to have genuine interactions with people.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where Imzy<\/a> comes in. Imzy, which aims to be a platform for genuine conversations with like-minded people, is launching out of private beta today.\u00a0It also recently closed an $8 million Series A round led by Index Ventures<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat makes me most excited about the funding is it gives us time,\u201d Imzy CEO Dan McComas told me. \u201cAs I think about telling our community members, \u2018look we got this money,\u2019 I\u2019m\u00a0excited to tell them we have the money to get this right for you. The money to take the time that your communities need so that we can really evolve the tools, the developer platform, the payments platform and really get this stuff right and we don\u2019t have to force ourselves too early into advertising or growing communities in ways that are unnatural for the communities. We now have a number of years to take our time and get the community thing right. That\u2019s the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n There are currently over 50,000 people on Imzy across 6,000 Imzy communities, with 50-60 percent of them being active weekly, in which people discuss\u00a0sexuality, relationships, games, books, politics and so much more. If the community you\u2019re looking for doesn\u2019t exist, you can create it yourself. The idea is that anyone and everyone has a place to go for safe, healthy conversations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been very proactive and very thoughtful about exactly what we want to have happen and the things that would be detrimental to having healthy communities,\u201d Imzy Head of Community Jessica Moreno told me earlier this month. \u201cWe have a lot of experiences looking at that stuff. There are a lot of things that result in the worst behavior that you don\u2019t need to allow to begin with. So we\u2019ve been very deliberate about that, where most places took 10 years to decide that they needed to start addressing things.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been bopping around on Imzy and have grown to adore a community on polyamory. I\u2019ve been blown away by the amount of support and great advice I\u2019ve received.\u00a0What\u2019s unique about Imzy is its flexibility around identities. You can be anyone you want on Imzy, including yourself, and even have multiple usernames, if you\u2019d like. For example, I\u2019m totally anonymous in the polyamory community, but I\u2019m myself in the community about racism.<\/p>\n Another unique aspect of Imzy is its developer platform, which enables\u00a0community members and leaders to build the features they need, and then share them with the rest of the larger Imzy community. Through the developer platform, people could easily build a tool for communities to schedule events and take RSVPs,\u00a0hook a payment platform into it and then charge a few bucks to people who want to attend. The aim is to prevent community fragmentation while also enabling other communities on Imzy to benefit from the tools on the developer platform.<\/p>\n Imzy has a tips platform that lets you reward great posts, and the team is also working on ways for communities to enable peer-to-peer transactions, crowdfunding and ultimately enable them with the tools to make money. That could be in the form of selling tickets for an in-person meetup or selling community swag and merchandise.<\/p>\n