Shapr Alternatives for Professional Networking

Shapr no longer works. The Paris-based app matched professionals by interests and goals with a Tinder-style swipe, raised a $3 million seed round in 2015 and a $9.5 million Series A in 2017, according to its Wikipedia entry. In April 2023 it was acquired by the HR consultancy Lincoln, as CFNEWS reported at the time, and the service later shut down. The shapr.co domain shows one marketing line and a testimonial, with no way to sign up or download the app.

Nothing on the market copies Shapr's exact format, a daily stack of people near you who also want to meet for coffee. What replaced it is a mix: AI connectors that broker introductions, LinkedIn for the profile and messaging layer, and event platforms that put you in a room with strangers who share an interest. The seven picks below cover all three, plus two founder-specific options.

Prices below are as of November 6, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

Boardy

Boardy calls itself an AI superconnector for founders, investors and operators. You tell it what you are building and who you want to meet, it searches its network, and it only sends an introduction after both sides opt in. The intro lands in your inbox, and Boardy can book the meeting for you.

That double opt-in is the part Shapr users will recognise: nobody gets a cold message. The Boardy homepage lists WhatsApp, iMessage, LinkedIn, X, Gmail and even ChatGPT and Claude as ways to talk to it, and claims more than 305,000 introductions and an average of 17 hours to a match. Those are the company's own counts.

Best for: Founders and operators who want a short list of relevant intros rather than a feed of profiles.

Pricing:

• No public price, plan list or usage limit

Watch out for:

• The network leans heavily toward startups and venture money, so a nurse or a lawyer looking for peers will get less from it.
• You hand an AI agent a detailed picture of your goals and contacts; read its privacy terms before connecting Gmail or LinkedIn.

Official site: Boardy.

LinkedIn

Most Shapr profiles pulled data from LinkedIn anyway, so the profile you need probably exists already. LinkedIn does not match you with strangers each morning, but its search filters by city, company, title and school, and a short connection note to a second-degree contact still gets answered more often than a cold email.

Premium adds InMail credits and shows who viewed your profile. A pricing roundup updated in August 2026 lists Premium Career at $39.99 a month billed monthly, or $239.88 a year, and Premium Business at $69.99 a month.

Best for: Anyone who wants their networking tied to a public work history and a searchable directory of professionals.

Pricing:

• Free account
• Premium Career: about $39.99 a month billed monthly, or $239.88 billed yearly
• Premium Business: about $69.99 a month billed monthly
• Prices vary by country

Watch out for:

• No matching at all: you find people and write the first message yourself, which is the work Shapr used to do for you.

Official site: LinkedIn.

Meetup

Meetup suits people who liked Shapr for its local angle. Groups for product managers, Python developers, freelancers or Spanish speakers meet in person on a schedule, so you see the same faces month after month, which turns a contact into an actual relationship.

If no group fits, you can start one. The Meetup help center says the free Starter plan for first-time organizers allows one group, two events a month and ten people per event; Standard and Pro lift those caps.

Best for: Building a local circle through repeat, in-person events on one topic.

Pricing:

• Joining and attending groups: free unless an organizer charges for an event
• Organizer Starter: free, 1 group, 2 events a month, 10 attendees per event (first-time organizers only)
• Standard organizer plan: from $29.99 a month, $99.99 per 6 months or $174.99 a year
• Pro organizer plan: from $55 per group a month
• Organizer prices vary by country

Watch out for:

• Quality depends entirely on the organizer, and many professional groups in smaller cities are dormant.
• The free Starter plan is closed to anyone who has paid for an organizer subscription before.

Official site: Meetup.

Luma

Luma is where a large share of tech, startup and AI events in cities like San Francisco, New York and London get listed. You browse by city, register in a tap, and hosts can see a guest list, so people often connect before and after the event on the same page.

Hosting is free with unlimited events and guests. The Luma pricing page takes a 5% platform fee on paid tickets on the free plan, while Luma Plus at $59 a month (billed yearly) drops that fee to 0% and raises the invite cap from 500 to 5,000 a week. Stripe's card fee applies on top.

Best for: Professionals in tech hubs who want a steady calendar of talks, demo days and dinners.

Pricing:

• Free: $0, unlimited events and guests, 500 invites a week, 5% fee on paid tickets
• Luma Plus: $59 a month billed yearly, 0% platform fee, 5,000 invites a week

Watch out for:

• Events skew heavily toward tech and startups; outside those circles the calendar can be thin.

Official site: Luma.

Bumble For Friends

Plenty of people used Shapr less for deals and more to meet people after moving cities. For them, the swipe format lives on in Bumble For Friends, Bumble's standalone friendship app. A relaunch reported by Fast Company in September 2025 added interest-based matching and a Groups area built on Geneva, a community app Bumble bought in 2024.

Bumble's professional mode, Bizz, is on its way out. Bumble's support center says Bizz is being phased out slowly in all countries and the option to turn on Bizz mode has been removed.

Best for: Newcomers to a city who want one-to-one and group meetups with people who share their interests.

Pricing:

• Free to download
• Paid features priced in the app; no public price list

Watch out for:

• Built for friendship, not careers; asking a match for a job intro will often land badly.
• Once you move your profile to the new app, BFF mode in the main Bumble app is gone for that account.

Official site: Bumble For Friends.

YC Co-Founder Matching

Shapr had a loyal following among people looking for a co-founder. Y Combinator's matching platform, part of its free Startup School, does that one job better: you state your skills, idea status and what you need in a partner, then browse candidates and send invites.

The Startup School site says the platform has produced over 100,000 matches. The course around it runs about seven weeks at one to two hours a week, so you meet other founders in the same cohort too. For more founder communities, see our Indie Hackers alternatives.

Best for: Would-be founders who need a technical or business co-founder.

Pricing:

• Free, including the Startup School course

Watch out for:

• Single purpose: useless once you have a co-founder, and not built for general career networking.

Official site: YC Co-Founder Matching.

GrowthMentor

Some Shapr users mostly wanted advice from someone a few steps ahead. GrowthMentor sells exactly that: video calls with vetted marketing, growth and startup mentors, booked through a calendar, with no need to sell yourself in a first message.

The GrowthMentor pricing page lists $75 a month for unlimited calls booked one at a time, and a yearly plan that adds three free months and three calls at a time. It claims 750+ mentors and a 4.8 out of 5 rating from 30,000+ founders.

Best for: Early founders and marketers who want regular calls with experienced operators.

Pricing:

• $75 a month, unlimited calls, one booked at a time
• Yearly plan: three months free and three calls at a time
• 14-day first-call guarantee; no free trial

Watch out for:

• It is paid mentoring, not peer networking; mentors rarely become collaborators or friends.

Official site: GrowthMentor.

How to choose

Can you still use Shapr?

No. Shapr was acquired by HR consultancy Lincoln in April 2023 and later shut down, and there is no working app or sign-up page. Skip any APK or third-party download still labelled Shapr: there is no service behind it. If you want to reconnect with old matches, search for them by name on LinkedIn.

Frequently asked questions