What UpTrust, PBC does

UpTrust, PBC is a privately held Public Benefit Corporation that operates a social media platform ranking content by trust and credibility rather than engagement metrics. Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company is led by cofounders Jordan Myska Allen, Pete Michaud, and Blake Borgeson, with a small team that also includes a DevOps engineer. The platform is accessible globally via the web at uptrusting.com, with no native mobile app; users add the progressive web app to their device home screen as a substitute for app-store distribution.

The core technology is a perspectival trust-ranking system in which each user up-trusts or down-trusts content and contributors within specific topic domains, producing a personalized, distributed trust graph rather than a universal score. The platform employs a bridge-detection algorithm that surfaces content up-trusted by opposing groups, surfacing nuanced perspectives that might otherwise remain siloed. The product surface includes groups, questions, events, direct messaging, and SMS notifications, organized around consumer use cases spanning family coordination, hobby communities, study groups, and local neighborhoods.

The business is currently pre-revenue: the platform is free to join with no dues, and the company states explicitly that monetization has not begun. The intended revenue model is a trust-based advertising marketplace in which advertisers engage creators who have earned audience trust on specific topics, and ads are shown only when vouched for by someone the user trusts. Go-to-market is product-led and community-driven, relying on word-of-mouth referrals, organic sharing on the platform itself, and limited Instagram paid acquisition. The PBC charter legally constrains any future pivot toward engagement-maximization.

Name

UpTrust, PBC

Legal name

UpTrust Inc.

Website

https://uptrusting.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2023

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

UpTrust, PBC is a Public Benefit Corporation operating a consumer-facing, trust-based social media platform that ranks content by credibility rather than engagement. The free web-based service, founded in 2023 in Austin, serves individuals seeking substantive conversations across family, hobby, learning, and local community use cases.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Social Media Platform

NAICS

Media Streaming Distribution Services, Social Networks, and Other Media Networks and Content Providers (516210), Media Streaming Distribution Services, Social Networks, and Other Media Networks and Content Providers (51621)

akta.pro primary industry

PR, Reputation Management & Earned Media Platforms (BPAMALAO)

Keywords

• Social media platform
• Trust-based ranking
• Online communities
• Credibility scoring
• Discussion forums

Headquarters

HQ city

Austin

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Trust-Based Advertising Marketplace: Planned future revenue model where advertisers work through creators who have earned trust with specific audiences on specific topics. Ads are only shown when vouched for by someone the user trusts. Creators can accept/reject ads based on reputation impact. Advertisers get pre-sold audiences with higher conversion.
2. Platform currently free: Platform is currently free to join with no dues. Revenue model not yet implemented.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

UpTrust is a social media platform that ranks content by trust and credibility rather than engagement. Users up-trust or down-trust content on specific topics, building personalized perspectival trust networks that determine feed rankings. The platform includes bridge detection to surface content trusted by opposing groups, and supports posts, comments, groups, questions, events, and direct messaging on a single web-based platform.

Product overview

UpTrust offers a single unified social media platform built on trust-based ranking rather than engagement optimization. The core platform enables users to post content, engage in discussions, join groups, participate in events, and ask questions, with all content ranked by trust scores determined through user voting (up-trust/down-trust) on specific topics. The platform emphasizes bridge-building features that surface credible perspectives across differing viewpoints, and includes topic-based communities, direct messaging, and SMS notifications for account activity.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Quantifiable outcome

• Threads on difficult topics can have 32+ substantive comments without degenerating into conflict
• +1 more outcomes

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Eric RiesminorOthersEric Ries serves as an advisor to UpTrust. Conversation between Eric Ries and cofounder Pete Michaud exists discussing the legal structures that protect missions in benefit corporations.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Reddit: Massive incumbent social platform that UpTrust explicitly positions against; uses upvote-based ranking (a precedent for trust signals) at much larger scale.
• Threads: Meta's text-first social network launched as an X alternative; comparable as a mainstream competitor entering the same alternative-feed market UpTrust targets.

Others

• Truth Social: Alternative social platform launched as an X competitor; not a product peer (different content model) but shares the alternative-feed market positioning and faces similar challenges scaling against incumbents.

Emerging players

• Tumblr: Interest-based social platform with strong community/identity use cases (fandoms, hobbies) similar to UpTrust's hobby and interest segments; smaller-scale post-engagement-pivot.
• Minds: Decentralized social network with reputation/reward tokens and freedom-of-speech positioning; comparable as a smaller alternative platform competing on different content-ranking principles.
• Substack: Subscription-based publishing/creator platform emphasizing thoughtful long-form content; competes for the same creator-economy and substance-over-engagement positioning.
• Discord: Community/group-chat platform organized around interest-based servers; overlaps with UpTrust's family/hobby/study group use cases.

Direct peers

• Mastodon: Federated/decentralized social network that rejects engagement-maximizing algorithms and emphasizes community-led moderation; competes for the same values-driven user base as UpTrust.
• Bluesky Social: Decentralized social network built around user-controlled feeds and reputation signals; most directly comparable alternative-platform play targeting users disenchanted with X/Twitter.

Regional players

• Nextdoor: Hyperlocal community social network focused on neighborhoods; comparable for UpTrust's 'Neighborhoods & Local Communities' segment and as a precedent for trust-based local feeds.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/uptrusting

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about UpTrust, PBC