Girls really do run the world with GirlCrew, a Dublin and Ireland-based social media app designed to connect women from all over the world. 

The app, founded by Elva Carri, Pamela Newenham and Aine Mulloy, gives women the space to find new friends near them or around the world. Women can make new friends and meet up for coffee or a night out, for example. 

Originating in Dublin, the app has launched in many countries, the United States being one of more recent plants. The GirlCrew trio aims to launch groups in major cities across America, Phoenix being one of them. 

It all started when Carri wanted to go dancing with some friends, but they were all busy. Set on not going out alone, she created a Tinder account and made her gender male so that she would only appear to other women, prefacing that she was a woman in her profile and was just looking for friends to dance with her. 

“She thought maybe that two or three people would be interested,” Newenham said in a phone interview. “But more than a 100 people matched with her.” 

With Tinder limiting private messaging to two people, Carri created a secret Facebook group initially called “Tinder Crew.” News about the group travelled fast, and hundreds of women began requesting to join the group. 

After some discussion of the group’s name between its members, the founders decided to rename the group to GirlCrew. 

As the group got bigger and the demands higher, Carri and her fellow co-founders discovered managing the group had become increasingly difficult. 

“As we got really big, it became problematic on Facebook,” Newenham said, “and we realized we needed our own platform, and that’s when we created the GirlCrew app.” 

The GirlCrew app, available in a desktop platform, and iOS and Android, launched last year and already has tens of thousands of members, bringing the total number of GirlCrew members across Facebook and the app to over 100,000 users. 

Between Facebook and the GirlCrew app, there are currently 49 groups based in major cities, and interest groups like business, travel and dating. To avoid inactive city groups, the trio decided to create groups based on their demand: If there are enough requests for a group in a certain city, the founders will make one. 

Through the app, women from all over the world can interact, post an event and plan a meet-up, or ask for advice. Even without a group for a specific community or city, it is still possible through the app to find other women nearby through the topic groups. 

The app is designed in a way that puts a focus on community building. Members do not have their own private wall like other social media platforms, emphasizing group chatting and interaction. 

The founding crew hopes their app will promote fun, uplifting conversations while also creating the platform to have women’s voices heard among peers. 

“Creating a space where women can be themselves, share advice and support one another is very important to us,” Newenham said. “That means that we’re open to differences of opinion and thoughts.” 

Newenham said that now, more than ever, the world needs “women supporting women.” GirlCrew hopes to foster this culture. 

“It’s about creating room for one another, and a network that uplifts the good than amplifying the negative,” she said. “People feel less likely to be judged by their peers in women-only spaces, and they feel like they’re more likely to be heard.”