French start-up Zenly, maker of a location-sharing app, raised $22.5 million in funding, which it will use to open a new San Francisco office, expand global reach and support recruitment efforts in product development.

Launched in January 2015, Zenly is a social networking app built for “seamless and precise” location sharing. The app currently has two million users in 186 countries.

Alexis Bonillo, co-founder and COO, said the firm wants to continue its mission of making the map “the epicentre of social interactions”.

Peter Fenton from Benchmark, which led the Series B round, will join the Zenly board. He is a board member of Twitter and has previously invested in social media companies.

He said: “Being able to see where your friends are and who they are with opens up a world of product opportunities, and if executed successfully, Zenly could be one of the iconic companies of our lifetime.”

This financing follows a Series A round in May, in which Zenly raised $11.2 million. The latest round saw participation from Jerry Murdock of Insight Venture Partners and earlier investors, including Xavier Niel and Idinvest.