Mediaboss Marketing

Spring.me co-founder Colin Fabig.

One of the world's fastest-growing social networks will go public when home-grown start-up Spring.me floats on the Australian Securities Exchange, the final stage in the company's capital raising campaign.

Aimed at helping "online-all-the-time" Gen Ys make friends, Spring.me's social network of websites and apps for making connections through questions and answers has attracted more than5 million regular visitors since its launch in September 2013.

Chief executive Keith O'Brien says the platform aims to reach 100 million users via product launches including native mobile apps, online games and match-making technology that can predict and connect people with like-minded potential friends around the world.

"Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram are mainly used for sharing with current friends and family, but we believe there is room for another social networking force focused on making new friends through Q&A," says O'Brien.

Spring.me was founded by serial internet entrepreneurs Colin Fabig and Ari Klinger, who share a love of social media and an eye for opportunity.

"As you go through life, you generally only become friends with around 1 per cent of the people you meet," says Klinger. "We wanted to use technology to help find the 1 per cent and remove the friction to help you meet them."

Spring.me features include group questions, where a member can ask up to 10 people online a question and get feedback from strangers, and multiple content feeds including questions, answers, photos, opinion polls and people online now.

Positioning itself as the "friendliest" social network, Fabig says extensive steps have been taken to eliminate the "nonsense and trolling" found on Twitter, Ask and Facebook via a system of crowd moderation, where volunteer members or "ambassadors" assign age-appropriate and language ratings to posts.

"With the help of nearly 1000 Spring.me ambassadors from all over the world, some content filtering and a lot smiley emoji's, we not only filter most of the unpleasant content you may encounter elsewhere, but our ambassadors also welcome newcomers to the site and help them become part of the friendly community," says Fabig.

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Is this Australia's answer to Facebook?