Fragmented
Events, meeting points and support offers are spread across flyers, websites, social media and personal networks.
Neighbourhood activation
Many people live nearby.Few really know each other.
Close makes offers, places and people in the neighbourhood visible and lowers the threshold to actually show up. For residents. For local partners. And for municipalities, housing providers and social organisations that want to make participation visible and effective.
Public interest oriented · Ad free · Data minimal · GDPR compliant
Three ways to real encounters.
Residents see what is genuinely reachable nearby. They can drop by events, join groups or meet directly with people around them. Close stays calm, ad free and focused on real-life encounter.
Events
open meetups, walks, one-off offers
Groups
recurring, without membership
Individuals
spontaneous one-to-one encounters
The app should not capture attention. It should lower a threshold: from “I do not know where to go” to “I can try this.”
Offers exist. Visibility and access are missing.
Not close enough to everyday life
People need simple entry points at the right moment, not yet another information page.
Hard to steer
Responsible teams often see too late which formats are used and where activation is missing.
Close brings things together. Local possibilities become easier to find. Responsible partners see aggregated signals of where participation emerges and where support is missing.
For municipalities, housing providers and social organisations
Steering without surveillance.
Organisations get a shared working basis: which offers are visible, which partners are active, where recurring formats emerge. Signals remain aggregated and support steering, not monitoring individual people.
Close makes visible what works in a neighbourhood without making individual people visible.
Loneliness is not a private issue. It is an infrastructure issue.
Social connection is not created by motivation alone, but by reachable places, visible offers and safe first steps. Close makes this infrastructure more usable in the neighbourhood.
Public Health
WHO 2023
Social isolation and loneliness are internationally described as relevant health and participation issues.
Research
Holt-Lunstad et al. 2015
Meta-analyses show that social connection is a measurable protective factor for health and quality of life.
Germany
Einsamkeitsbarometer 2024
Loneliness affects different age groups and is a task for local infrastructure.
Built for trust, not for attention.
Close is designed as social infrastructure. The platform is public interest oriented, ad free and data minimal. The goal is not maximum screen time, but real local connection in everyday life.
Public interest oriented
Close serves a social purpose, not the sale of attention.
Ad free
No advertising logic and no commercial exploitation of social relationships.
Data minimal
Reporting provides aggregated signals, not individual surveillance.
No dating app. No advertising platform. No attention-driven network.
Pilot
In six months. In your neighbourhood.
Close is currently being built with a municipal partner in a new residential quarter of around 600 households. We invite additional founding partners who want to learn together how local participation can become visible, usable and responsibly measurable.
Pilots are typically funded by providers, municipalities or grant programmes. In the first conversation we clarify which frame fits your neighbourhood.
Founded by Alexander Akbik and Mathias Fallak.
6 to 12 months
Enough time for onboarding, activation and meaningful participation signals.
1 area
A clear local focus instead of a broad rollout without a learning curve.
10 to 20 partners
Organisations, meeting places and recurring formats are onboarded deliberately.
Monthly reporting
Activity, reach and signals are reviewed together on a regular basis.
Let us jointly assess whether Close fits your neighbourhood.
In a first conversation we clarify area, partner structure, existing offers and a realistic pilot frame.
Request pilot