Boardy vs Series
Both make introductions and neither uses a normal app. Series does it entirely inside iMessage; Boardy phones you.
Side by side
| Boardy | Series | |
|---|---|---|
| Channels | Voice | iMessage |
| How you start | Phone call | Text a number |
| Who starts it | Calls you first | Messages you first |
| Pricing | Not published | Not published |
| Can do | Introductions, Calendar and scheduling, Phone calls | Introductions |
| Trains on your conversations | Not stated | Policy not reviewed |
| Status | Live | Live |
| Company | Not published | Series |
Rows where the two agree are dimmed. Every figure comes from the product’s own public pages, checked 2026-09-06.
What actually differs
Series works entirely inside iMessage: you text a number, describe who you are and who you want to meet, and it sends back people worth meeting. It reports presence on more than 750 campuses and a claimed 82% day-30 retention, which would be extraordinary for a consumer social product and should be read as a company figure rather than a verified one. Founded by two Yale seniors, Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow, with a $5.1 million pre-seed led by Pear VC.
Boardy is the only voice-first product in this directory. It phones you, learns what you are looking for, and introduces you, reporting 166,000 users, around 114,000 introductions and a 17-hour average time to a match. Its channel has far higher friction per interaction and, by its own numbers, more throughput.
One incident belongs on this comparison. Boardy ran a campaign in which its AI commented on people's appearances, and its chief executive apologised publicly. When an agent introduces people, its judgement is the product, and there is no interface layer between a bad output and a real person hearing it.
Boardy is for
Anyone who would rather talk than type, and wants introductions made by something that heard the nuance.
Series is for
Anyone on a campus, or anyone who wants the whole thing to stay in a text thread.
There is no winner here on purpose. These are different products for different situations, and the paragraph above names the question that tells you which you are in. See all nine providers compared or answer five questions to narrow it yourself.