Social media rivals are having a field day from the haemorrhage of users from X. Weeks after the U.S. presidential election, social app founded by two former employees of Twitter also saw a spurt in its membership, just like rival Bluesky, that gained more than 2 million users during that period.

This firm, which had raised seed funding of $2 million from investors including Kapor Capital, Collide Capital, and Kerry Washington, among others, has seen its sign-up jump a 10x week over week, according to Spill co-founder and CEO Alphonzo Terrell in a LinkedIn post.

"This is the biggest weekly growth since the launch of the platform back in July last year," he said to TechCrunch on Thursday while speaking with the AfroTech Conference. "We have seen our returning users grow 4x, that's our highest since last summer," he said.

Apart from the growth of Spill, Terrell said that the startup is currently finishing up a seed round and is on track to cross $1 million in annualized revenue next year.

Spill's rising popularity is hardly a surprise: Social media users are abandoning X over concerns about misinformation and moderation. The news site recently found itself the focal point of Black Twitter when it orchestrated boycotts of brands and companies by calling on them to pull their ads from X over its new owner, Elon Musk, and many of them have flocked to Spill, which perceived it as a "safer space" for the digital Black community.

In response to this, Terrell says his application is more about bringing in just people but in a way that those people keep returning and also invite others.

Since January, Terrell and his team have been focusing on making Spill more fun and keeping its users interested. It streamlined its interface; introduced new feed options, so that users see what is trending; improved content moderation; and added ways for commerce to exist on the platform by launching a Spill Shop. In June, the company launched its first game, Spades, which has been played over 20,000 times, Terrell said.

This week, Spill unveiled Groups, the ability to create subcommunities, at the AfroTech Conference.

"That's where some of the funniest takes are, even in group chats when it's with a more intimate group of friends," Terrell explained. "With Spill Groups, fandoms, community orgs, book clubs, and group chats can plug into what's happening in global and local culture simultaneously.".

For Terrell, AfroTech has always been special. Two years ago, Terrell walked into the conference, just fired from X, taking calls and coffee meetings to try and get the company off the ground. Last year at AfroTech, Spill was toasting a $2 million seed extension round with Dom Pérignon. A few months ago, the company said actress and Spill user Kerry Washington had come on as an investor.

"People are looking for ways to stay connected and find community," Terrell said, pointing to a Bloomberg story saying that since November 6, there has been an uptick in hate speech and targeted harassment on social media.

Coming just ahead of the new terms of X's agreement, kicking in Friday, comes news of the growth of Spill. The new terms, among other things, will let the platform train AI models on users' posts and force lawsuits with X to be litigated in a northern Texas court, favourable to Musk. The issues have already driven off of the platform some high-profile names, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who called the litigation issue a way the rule changes may shield X and punish its critics.

"The [X agreement] rule changes are just the latest in a series of actions taken by some legacy platforms that alienate both users and businesses that drive online culture," agreed Terrell.

Spill, however has been downloaded more than 500,000 times, the company told TechCrunch. Terrell is full of excitement and so is Spill with the future: "Spill is a product specifically designed for this moment and we're excited to put it into the hands of communities looking for a safer, more rewarding, more enjoyable way to connect virtually."