“We’re committed to building Lex to be a thriving social app for LGBTQ+ community,” Lewis said in a written statement. “It’s an invaluable tool used by 1 million people to date to express their full queer identity, safe from harassment of mainstream social, cultivate connections with local gays in their neighborhood and find queer resources.”

Lex had raised a total of $7 million in funding, the company told Business Insider earlier this year. The full-time team was about eight staffers, according to a comment on the platform’s Instagram account.

Like many other newer social-media platforms, Lex has been experimenting with ways to monetize its product. The app offers premium features — such as changing your location or the ability to post several times a month — that users can unlock with one-time purchases. It also has a program for queer-owned businesses to advertise on its platform.

In June, Lex announced its “Team Gay Agenda” campaign to raise funds from its users via recurring monthly pledges and told users that the “Lex community is at risk.”

The layoffs occurred at the end of June.

“With the well documented demise of queer spaces, our number one priority will always be making sure our community has space to thrive on Lex,” Lewis added. “The layoffs allow us to explore more possibilities to achieve that vision. We’re currently in active conversations with other parties who share our commitment to accelerate this community’s growth.”

The platform is not shutting down and two laid-off staffers told BI that they hope to see the platform survive.

“I believe in the app,” said one laid-off staffer who requested anonymity to protect career prospects.

The queer community is growing, but new social apps face an uphill climb

Lex services a small but growing community: A Gallup poll found that in 2012, just 3.5% of Americans considered themselves non-heterosexual; in 2020 — just after the time of Lex’s founding — that figure grew to 5.6%. And, as of 2023, 7.6% of Americans identified as non-heterosexual. That increase has been driven by younger generations — including over a fifth of Gen Z — identifying as LGBTQ+.

Business Insider’s analysis of individual-level Household Pulse Survey data from April 2024 found that just around a third of gay and lesbian adults are married, compared to 58% of straight adults — another potential boon for dating-based platforms. Queer adults might also wield some significant spending power.

But it can still be difficult for new social apps to sustain themselves after initial interest bursts. For instance, BeReal, which was recently sold, has seen a decline in active users since its viral moment in 2022, according to recent estimates from Sensor Tower. It also recently laid off staff following its sale.

“We’re so grateful for how far we’ve come from one little Instagram account, and we couldn’t have done that without you all,” Lex wrote in its “Team Gay Agenda” campaign letter. “The future is queer, and the future has Lex in it.”