Built by an Indonesian founder in Singapore and now available in Australia, Sanct Social puts close relationships at the centre of its ambition to grow. Sion Abednego explains the personal experience behind the app and why he wants people to keep coming back. The company has opened a pre-seed round and is speaking with investors in Australia who back social and networking platforms and mental health-related ventures.
SYDNEY, Australia, 7 November 2026. Sion Abednego was still messaging and calling a close friend when he missed how much she was struggling. That experience became the reason he started Sanct Social, a social networking app now available in Australia.
The Indonesian founder, who is building the company in Singapore, developed the social networking app himself using AI development tools. Now available for iPhone in Australia, Sanct Social helps close friends and family share how they feel, understand each other better and stay involved in each other’s lives.
The company reports more than 1,000 registered users across its markets as of 6 November 2026. For Abednego, the business he wants to build depends on giving those relationships a lasting place in people’s daily lives.
The conversation he keeps coming back to
Sion started Sanct Social after losing a close friend. They had continued messaging and calling. She said she was okay. Looking back at the photos, songs and quotes she had shared, he felt he had missed signs of what she was going through.
“We were still talking. That is the part that stays with me. I knew how to reach her, but I did not understand how she was feeling,” Abednego said.
That experience led him to examine how consumer social products handle the personal side of sharing. People can know what happened in a friend’s day and still struggle to understand what it meant to them. A conversation can continue while something important remains unsaid.
Sanct Social’s purpose follows from that gap. Its three core values are to help people share how they feel, understand each other better and be there for one another. Those values include difficult days, ordinary company and good news worth celebrating together.
A friend may want someone to notice they are having a rough week. Another may simply want company after work. Abednego wants both to feel at home in the same app.
Building a product people want to return to
For a founder entering consumer social, the commercial question is unavoidable. People already have established habits and places where their friends spend time. Another app has to earn a place alongside them.
“Of course I want Sanct Social to grow, and I want people to keep using it. I want them to come back because being there with the people they care about means something to them,” he said.
His view is that emotional connection and retention belong in the same product conversation. Someone shares a moment, a friend responds, and there is a reason to continue spending time together. The value has to reach the person receiving the post as well as the person who made it.
That is the ambition behind Sanct Social’s focus on close friends and family. Abednego wants a growing business in which people continue to recognise the personal value that brought them in.
As the company grows, Abednego wants sharing, responding and spending time together to become routines people value. Retention is central to that ambition.
The app is free to use, with optional Premium subscriptions and no advertising. Its business model depends on people finding enough ongoing value to pay for additional benefits.
Where AI fits
AI has two roles in Sion’s story. He uses development tools to help build the product. Inside Sanct Social, Sancty is an AI companion people can talk to about their day.
Sancty sits within the social experience. Alongside her are ways for people to express how they feel and shared virtual spaces in The Verse, where friends can spend time together when they are apart.
People can take part in different ways. Some days they want a conversation. Other days they want company, a familiar place to meet or a way to express something they cannot easily put into words.
For Sion, the design question is what those choices mean to the person using them. AI tools have allowed him to bring the product to market as a solo founder, while responsibility for those choices remains his.
“I can use AI to help me build. I still have to decide whether what I am building makes sense for the person opening the app. That responsibility is mine,” he said.
An Australian audience with people elsewhere
Australia gives the idea a relevant setting. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that 8.8 million Australian residents were born overseas at 30 June 2025, representing 32 per cent of the population.
For Abednego, families and friendships spread across countries are one audience he wants Sanct Social to serve. A move for work or study can change how people spend time together, even when they remain close.
The opportunity is in the ordinary days between visits. Knowing how someone’s week has gone, sharing a small achievement or having time together without needing a special occasion can help a relationship remain part of daily life.
That matters across distances within Australia too. The person someone wants to spend time with may be in another city, overseas or simply working a different schedule.
Abednego sees room for Sanct Social alongside the platforms people already use. Its particular focus is on how close friends and family experience those everyday relationships.
The company he wants to build
Abednego has funded Sanct Social from his own savings, taking it from an idea to a live product. He wants to turn that personal commitment into a sustainable company.
Sanct Social is now raising its first outside capital. The company has opened a pre-seed round and is speaking with investors in Australia who back social and networking platforms and mental health-related ventures, to fund the next stage of the product and its growth in Australia and Southeast Asia.
“I am looking for investors who understand why a friend coming back matters more than a stranger signing up,” Abednego said. “Australia has people who have backed exactly that kind of company, and I would like to meet them.”
His ambition is for more people to join, find value together and continue using it. The personal reason he started the company remains central to what he wants that growth to achieve.
“I want to build a company that lasts. For me, that starts with people wanting to keep showing up for each other. Sanct Social should give them more reasons to do that,” he said.
Sanct Social is available for iPhone through the Australian App Store. It is free to use, with optional Premium subscriptions. An Android version is coming soon.
Website: https://sanct.social
Australian App Store: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/sanct-social/id6806056237
This press release has also been published on VRITIMES
