Pie, the social app founded by Bonobos co-founder Andy Dunn, launched a Communities feature on Tuesday, August 26, 2026, giving users permanent digital spaces to organize social groups — a move that shifts the app’s focus from event listings toward ongoing community building.
The new “Community Homes” give group organizers and members a dedicated feed, admin and membership controls, a shareable homepage, and event planning tools. Unlike traditional admin-only posting, any member can share events to a group’s feed. Pie also plans to add group chats and a feature for casual, unstructured connection requests — such as asking if anyone wants to “hang out and craft together” — without requiring a formal event.
Pie was originally founded as an events app in Chicago and has grown to approximately 300,000 users. Its backers include Forerunner, Lightspeed, Accel, and angel investors such as Twitter co-founder Ev Williams. The app currently has its strongest traction in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.
Dunn said he was motivated to build Pie after struggling to find community when he relocated from New York to Chicago, at a time when social clubs were gaining popularity among Gen Z. “Run clubs, art markets, watch parties — all these things that we’re hearing about in terms of the cultural movement towards being together again,” Dunn told TechCrunch. He described Pie as a kind of “Reddit for IRL.”
Nadya Okamoto, founder of the New York run club Zoomies, has since joined the company as co-founder and CMO. She framed the platform as resembling “the original promise of Facebook and Reddit — if it wasn’t anonymous and toxic,” with events serving as an outcome of community rather than the starting point.
The Communities launch follows earlier changes in the same direction. Last December, Pie updated its activity feed to highlight which friends were attending events, rather than just listing events. The company said that change increased average time spent in the app from two minutes to ten minutes. More recently, Pie added a “favorites” feature allowing users to display personal interests on their public profiles.
Source: TechCrunch