A Q&A with Tanner Haas, Founder of Freedom Chat
Tell us a Bit About Your Drive to Start Freedom Chat?
Freedom Chat was born out of my growing concerns about privacy, both in the U.S. and globally. Cyberattacks have increased by 92%, and over 90% of people disapprove of their data being sold. But it wasn’t until I personally experienced a few unsettling incidents that I truly understood the depth of the problem.
While running my previous company, Zeke SEO, I received a call from my grandma. She had been tricked by a scammer who claimed I had been in a car accident and urgently needed $25,000. Thankfully, I was fine, but the experience made me realize how vulnerable people are to privacy violations.
Later that same day, I watched a friend’s video about his new hot tub, and out of nowhere, I was bombarded with hot tub ads—without ever typing a word about it. Th
at was the turning point for me. I knew something had to be done to protect privacy. The idea for Freedom Chat was born the next day, and we immediately set to work on creating a product that safeguards your online privacy.
What is Freedom Chat?
Freedom Chat is a secure private messenger that lets you talk to who you want and subscribe to the channels you want all in complete and total privacy. With end-to-end encryption, no message storage on our servers, and no commercial use of user data, Freedom Chat is designed for those who want total freedom from Big Tech surveillance.
What Are Some Recent Highlights for Freedom Chat?
In our previous pre-seed funding round, Freedom Chat raised roughly $1.25M and assembled a world-class team with a track record of dozens of successful exits. We’ve already seen over 20,000 downloads in the U.S. alone and built a truly private messaging app that allows users to edit, unsend, and self-destruct images, videos, GIFs, and more. Additionally,
we published an encryption analysis and white paper on our website, and have been featured in prominent outlets such as The Larry Elder Podcast, Yahoo Finance, OAN, Authority Magazine, Bold Journey Magazine, and MarketWatch. We also successfully launched Freedom Chat for Business to further expand our platform’s reach and capabilities.
Can You Tell Us More About Your Seed Round?
We’ve officially launched our seed round with a $24M post-money valuation (via a SAFE) and are targeting a $4M raise. This represents nearly a 2x increase from our pre-seed round, where we had a $12.5M valuation cap on our SAFE.
We have already raised over $400,000 and have received strong interest from investors.
Our fundraising goals are broken down as follows:
- $1M from individual investors
- $500,000 from existing investors
- $250,000 – $500,000 via crowdfunding and the Go Fund Yourself Show
- $2M – $3M from Family Offices & VC’s
This will allow us to release quantum-safe encryption (PQC), enable voice and video calls, acquire new users, expand our business verticals, and improve the Freedom Chat user experience.
How Big Could Freedom Chat Be in 5 to 10 Years?
We firmly believe that within the next 5 to 10 years, Freedom Chat could attract anywhere from 50 million (1% of the market) to 150 million monthly active users, with at least 10 million paying subscribers. Our goal is for Freedom Chat to become one of the leading private messaging apps—not just for conservatives but for anyone who values freedom, privacy, and security.
What is Your Vision for Freedom Chat?
We, as a team, have become quite obsessed with this company and its mission and believe that Freedom Chat can—and will—become a $5 to $10 billion company within the next 5 to 10 years. Freedom Chat will play a very important role in securing user data for industries such as insurance, healthcare, and education. We truly believe that what we are building—especially in terms of our security—has the potential to change the world for the better, particularly as we enter the era of quantum computing.
Of course, that’s not a guarantee, and we’re not making any promises, but it’s the vision I have and our entire team shares, and we’re committed to doing everything we can to make it a reality.