Earlier this year, we made an investment in Ribbon, a new modern verified professional social network. LinkedIn, probably the most popular professional social network, is grappling with a massive issue of fake profiles and false experiences. Ribbon addresses this problem by offering a variety of ways for an individual to verify their experiences on the platform (social + institutional verification). Their mission is to improve the connection between verified professionals and assist them in finding their next opportunity.

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How it works

Once an individual lands on Ribbon they are prompted to create a Ribbon profile that includes a general video intro of themselves (telling the world they are real and not a bot) and start adding their experiences which can be socially verified by past managers and teammates. The user can also start to collect verified digital recognition from institutions like companies, associations, schools, private clubs that they are a part of. The completion of their Ribbon profile allows the user to start engaging with other verified professionals in a gated community.  Additional features and benefits are only available to users who complete a full Ribbon profile and verifies their experiences ensuring a more trusted ecosystem.

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The Visionaries

The co-founders of Ribbon, Dave Vu and Arsham Ghahramani, are based in Toronto, Canada and have assembled a dynamic team with extensive experience in building and scaling technology products used by hundreds of millions of people globally. The team includes early leaders from tech and business domains at companies such as Amazon, Coursera, Ada, Klarna, RoseRocket and Ezra.

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Features and Growth

While still in its early stages, Ribbon invites users to create their unique profiles (check out mine here), serving as the key to unlock current and future features. A recent addition allows users to earn money by expanding their network on Ribbon – a departure from platforms like LinkedIn, which monetise user data without sharing the benefits. Encouraging users to create complete, verified profiles benefits the Ribbon community and contributes to the upcoming Jobs copilot feature, enhancing user experiences and job placement opportunities.

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Campus Ambassador Program

Ribbon has also launched a Campus Ambassador Program, where they are seeking enthusiastic and driven students currently at university to become Ribbon Campus Ambassadors. As an ambassador, they will be a key advocate for Ribbon on their campus, helping Ribbon spread the word about their platform and its benefits. Ribbon currently has 15 campus ambassadors across top universities in the US and Canada. If you would like to apply to represent Ribbon at your university, you can find more information here.

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I'm excited about Ribbon's growth and its potential as a challenger to existing professional social network platforms. With over 150K+ members and numerous features in the pipeline, now is the time to follow Ribbon and create your profile!

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Feel free to reach out to me or Dave (dave@ribbon.cool) if you're interested in partnering with Ribbon to recognise and verify your team’s accomplishments.

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We are actively looking to support more web3 projects. If you’re building something in the space, please do get in touch. Our DMs are open. :)