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Social media startup Hunch has raised $23 million in a Series A funding round led by Alpha Wave and South Korea-based Hashed Emergent.

The Dubai-headquartered company will use the funds to strengthen tech infrastructure, improve feed personalisation and accelerate its expansion into the US and Indian markets. It already has offices in India and Singapore.

Previously, the firm scooped up $3 million in a seed round in June 2022.

Founded in 2022  by Ish Goel, Hunch allows users to create polls that attract votes and comments on various topics, like pop culture, gaming, finance, dating, relationships, anime etc. The polls abridge a curiosity gap, allowing users to validate their own opinions and find like-minded individuals.

Hunch claims to record over 1.15 lakh polls, attracting more than 1 crore opinions through user votes across the nation. As per the company, nearly 85% of its user base is in India, with the rest coming from the US.

In a statement to the media, Goel said that the firm is looking to scale up to the low single-digit millions of MAUs over the next 12 months with 40% to 50% of that user base coming from the US.

Hunch is the second Indian-origin founder-led startup that has a base in Dubai and raised funding in 2023. Last week, Fashinza co-founder Jamil Ahmad’s proptech startup Marrfa announced its pre-seed round led by Berlin-based VC firm Foundamental.