Young social media platform Tagstr has received a further $1m in seed funding, taking the total to $2.6 million – the business has announced.

The relatively new social media platform is the brainchild of 24-year-old entrepreneur Michael Venn, who founded the company is August 2014.

Its USP is that it works solely on a hashtag model – as opposed to a follower model like platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. So users search uniquely for images, video and audio from a certain event to make up their timeline.

It has attracted more than 500,000 users since its launch and has seen more than 20 million uploads from users.

All of the investment to date has come from high net worth individuals and will be used to build partnerships and further develop the platform.

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There have been several updates to the platform in recent months, including the ability to upload multiple files at the same time, full-screen view and swipe through, as well as a new Explore page that lets users view trending hashtags, popular posts and posts near them. It is also now available on Apple Watch.

Founder and CEO Michael Venn said he launched the platform to “shake up the online sharing landscape”.

“We wanted to provide a social sanctuary for people to share experiences, interests and passions whatever they are into, from graffiti to goalkeeping, cocktails to canal boats. We wanted to offer a platform where people could get the bigger picture,” he continued.

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