Hudd – a social medium or credit brokerage?

Hudd was launched in November 2024 as an ad-free Norwegian alternative to Facebook and X. Later came the credit brokerage — from companies the owners themselves have interests in.

September 16, 2026

SOURCES | SOCIETY

Image by AI/S&P

From Defero to Hudd

At its launch in November 2024, Hudd was marketed as a safe, algorithm-free and ad-free Norwegian alternative to the global social media platforms such as Facebook and X, built on Vipps-verified identity and the neighbourhood as its frame.

The founder of Hudd, Eigil Arff Tarjem, came from a background in finance and the credit industry — from Citibank, Sparebanken Øst and Dun & Bradstreet.

In 2018 he founded Defero, a service where private individuals could run a credit check on themselves free of charge. The service was free because the company made its money at the next stage, by showing members what interest rates they could get and passing them on. After four years, in August 2022, Defero was sold to Axo, one of the Nordic region's largest distributors of financial products, owned by the private equity fund Corsair. Tarjem joined the group management at Axo. He has told Finansavisen that he sold his previous company for 200 million kroner.

Jostein Christian Dalland was chief executive of Axo when the company bought Defero.

Two years later Tarjem launched Hudd — a social medium focused on the neighbourhood, without algorithms and without advertising. "No banner ads disturbing the experience", the press release said. The reasoning was concern for children and young people, and for what the global platforms do to relationships.

In July 2025 Dalland was registered as chair of the board of Hudd.

Offers presented as benefits

In March 2025 the company informed its users how Hudd was going to make money; local businesses, premium users, key partners, digital goods and two streams tied to buying and selling between users. All of it was to happen without misusing or selling the users' data.

Credit brokerage was not mentioned. Even so, offers for credit cards, consumer loans, loan brokerage, refinancing, credit checks and investment eventually appeared in Hudd. The offers were presented under a Benefits menu and in banner ads. The effective interest rate in the offers ran up to 30 per cent. One of the offers promised two cinema tickets to anyone who completed a credit application. Offers were also sent by e-mail, as an exclusive offer for Hudd users.

One of the offers came from uScore, which provides free credit checks. The service is operated by Defero AS — the company Tarjem founded and sold, and which today is owned by Axo, where Hudd's chair of the board is chief executive. Tarjem's own investment company holds shares in Snow Topco, which owns Axo three levels down.

The shareholder register for 2025 shows several ties between people, companies, ownership and credit brokerage in Hudd. The investment app Stack by me has Hudd's majority owner Tarjem on its shareholder list. Finfly is owned and run by one of Hudd's shareholders. The loan broker Sambla is run in Norway by a co-founder of a company that same shareholder owns a fifth of.

The graphic below shows how the people, the companies and the offers to Hudd's users are connected.

A depiction of Hudd's ties to credit brokerage firms

Click for interactive graphic

The same model, a new entrance

Defero was built on a simple mechanism: give people free insight into their own credit score, and make the money on what happens afterwards.

The question is whether Hudd is built for the same thing. Users on Hudd log in with Vipps or BankID, and their name and home address are drawn from the National Population Register. The company states that it has 215,000 registered users. The verification with Vipps and BankID is sold to the user as a safeguard, that the people on Hudd are real people. For a credit broker it is precisely this verification that makes the user base valuable; a confirmed name and a confirmed address.

Hudd does not need to sell user data for the user database to have value for the company. It is enough to present the offers to the users. The digital traffic goes on to the credit providers — which in several of the cases are companies Tarjem himself holds stakes in.

Hudd removed ads and information

On 6 September 2026 Society and Politics notified Hudd that a credit offer, sent as an e-mail from Hudd under the title "Has the summer cost more than planned?", lacked user consent as required by the Personal Data Act. The company replied that it was a mistake.

The credit ad nonetheless remained in the Hudd application. S&P then had an exchange with the company and published articles assessing the Hudd application and the company. After S&P informed them that an article about the shareholders was also coming, all the ads had been removed from Hudd by 10 September. The credit offer mentioned, which came by e-mail, is still active via that e-mail at the time this article is published.

After S&P published an article on 8 September showing that more than 90 per cent of the 18,000+ groups on Hudd are hidden from view, where Hudd declined the opportunity to comment, the company has launched a new website where the total number of groups no longer appears. Police and authorities warn against closed spaces on social media.

Short of capital

In August 2025 Hudd raised 20 million kroner from 937 investors through crowdfunding at Folkeinvest. The valuation of 122 million was set by the company itself. Finansavisen had analysts assess it, and they called it "insane". With revenues of 50,000 kroner a month, the company was priced at around 200 times earnings, against the five that is normal for Norwegian technology companies. Tarjem's answer was that it is not fundamentally oriented analysts he is courting.

In March 2026 Tarjem told Finansavisen that Hudd was in the process of raising 20 to 40 million more, this time at a valuation of at least 140 million. He was looking for an institutional investor with stock market experience and was aiming for a listing of Hudd in 2028.

Anders Frogner began as managing director of Hudd in April 2026, taking over from Tarjem. Just over four months later, Tarjem was once again registered as the company's managing director in Brønnøysund-register. It also emerges there that the company did not appoint an auditor until the summer of 2026.

On Tuesday 15 September, in an e-mail titled "Hudd needs your help" and on the company's website, Tarjem informed users that the attempt to bring in a larger investor has not succeeded. Further, that the company is short of capital and faces an uncertain future. Users are asked to join a collective effort to save Hudd, to pay for membership and to recruit new users.

Hudd does not appear to be what it claims to be

Hudd was marketed as the safe alternative to the global social media platforms. Verified people, no algorithms, no advertising, full control over your own data.

The picture that emerges is a different one. S&P has uncovered that the application is marked by technical faults and low user activity, failures in data protection, and that large parts of the platform are hidden from view.

The verification with BankID is sold as a safeguard, but constitutes a data protection risk in that the user's identity and place of residence are known also to users who may have dishonest intentions. Seen in connection with activity in closed digital spaces, this is a matter of concern. S&P has further uncovered that the verified personal data has been used commercially.

Hudd brought in 937 shareholders in the crowdfunding. Several of these are minority shareholders who help keep activity going on Hudd; these are owners who have an interest in recruiting users to the application.

When the company now goes out actively and asks its users to recruit new members and move groups from other social media over to Hudd, these are the circumstances the new users are not informed about.