Dispo social network with postponed photo publication has no future: founder and investors left it

Dispo, a photo-sharing app co-created with YouTuber David Dobrik, is struggling with the loss of major investors. And the reason for this is a provocative video with elements of sexual violence, in which one of the Dobrik team members took part.

On March 21, 2021, the venture capital company Spark Capital published a post on Twitter, in which it announced the termination of cooperation with the Dispo service. At the same time, representatives of the organization noted that they will take all possible measures so as not to profit from recent investments.

This decision was made after an investigation by Insider. The publication published a statement from a girl who claims that one of the members of Dobrik’s team raped her at a party in 2018. The victim said that on that day she was taken out of common sense with the help of alcohol, and one of the men present began to harass her. After the party, Dobrik posted a vlog in which the participants peeped into the room where the possible rape was taking place. Before the video was removed at the request of the girl, it was watched 5 million times.

After the publication of Insider, Dobrik publicly apologized. However, such a “noble” step did not save him from losing sponsors. Major investors like DoorDash, EA Sports and Dollar Shave Club have severed ties with the YouTuber.

After such a scandal, Dispo’s rating fell below two stars in the App Store. Apple even limited the ability to comment on the app for a while. In order not to aggravate the situation, Dobrik decided to leave the board of directors and leave the company. Perhaps such a step will help to regain the leading positions of the social network.

As a reminder, 24-year-old YouTuber David Dobrik teamed up with Daniel Liss and Natalie Mariduena to create a photo-sharing application that mimics the use of non-digital technologies. Users had to wait a few hours before their images were “developed” and published. In February 2021, the program was dubbed a “substitute” for Instagram.

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