uWave, a Singapore-based social networking app targeting Gen Z users, has raised US$260,000 in a pre-seed fundraise. The fund was supported by angel investors such as Carousell CEO Quek Siu Rui, Carro CEO Aaron Tan, Rainforest CEO JJ Chai, GetGo CEO Ting Feng Toh, and ex-Facebook director Andy Hwang. 

The company has since gained public attention for having successfully included big names in their pre-seed round, a round whose funders are commonly the founders themselves because the company is only first getting their operations off the ground. The pre-seed funds will be spent to improve the platform’s user experience and new community features.

uWave was founded in 2020 by Nanyang Technological University graduates Ding Ren Quek, Cedrik Lim, Kevin Yu, Chen YongWei and is a student-targeted app that aims to “make student life suck less”. Its services focus on campus information and networking features, including student timetable, finals countdown, commute routes, campus maps, student discussion forum, and clubs and societies. Students are also encouraged to leave reviews and write ratings on modules for everyone to see.

The championing feature from uWave has to be its exclusive Student Discounts, which is a collaboration feature with YQueue. This feature allows users to order food directly from the app with selected discounts specially catered for students. 

29,000 users are currently engaging the app with a rapid growth rate of 1,500 users per week. They are mostly students across eight schools in Singapore. “uWave aims to not only be the go-to social networking app for Gen Zs, we are also committed to addressing pain points not tackled by existing solutions,” said Ding Ren Quek, co-founder of uWave, to Tech in Asia, referring to the rise of mental health issues among students. The app, thus, seeks to provide students a “safe haven” to express their opinions without fear of judgement.

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