One of the pioneers of consumer artificial intelligence has turned her second company into a unicorn, betting that the next wave of AI assistants will be built not just for individuals but for families, friends and groups.
Wabi, a San Francisco-based AI startup founded by Eugenia Kuyda, has raised $55 million at a valuation of $1.25 billion, according to a company announcement on Thursday, October 29, reported by Tech Startups. The round was led by IVP, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Forerunner and the Amazon Alexa Fund.
Individual investors include Shopify chief executive Tobi Lütke, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff, former Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer and former Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo. Wabi has now raised at least $75 million in publicly reported rounds.
From Replika to Wabi
Kuyda is best known as the founder of Replika, the AI companion app that became one of the first mass-market applications of conversational AI. Launched in 2017, years before ChatGPT, Replika allowed users to create personalised AI companions with which they could chat, attracting millions of users worldwide.
Replika's success, and the debates it sparked about emotional relationships with AI, made Kuyda one of the most recognised women in the AI industry, a field in which women remain significantly under-represented among founders and leaders.
Wabi represents a different vision. Rather than a companion for one person, it is designed as a personal AI assistant for individuals and groups, helping people plan events, organise schedules, and manage shared interests and routines.
The product
Wabi began as a platform where users could create and share small AI-powered applications, sometimes described as a "YouTube of apps," allowing people without coding skills to build personalised tools using AI. It has since positioned itself around personal and group assistance, offering shared AI apps for planning and coordination.
Group coordination is a common pain point: organising a family holiday, planning a dinner with friends, managing a children's sports schedule or coordinating a club's activities often involves endless messages across different apps. An AI assistant that can manage these tasks for a group could address a real need.
The company has not disclosed revenue, active users or retention metrics.
Why investors are paying up
A valuation of $1.25 billion for a company that has not disclosed user or revenue numbers reflects investor confidence in Kuyda's track record and in the potential of consumer AI. Investors have poured money into AI applications aimed at consumers, betting that new categories of products will emerge as AI models become more capable.
The participation of the Amazon Alexa Fund is notable. Amazon has invested heavily in its own voice assistant, Alexa, and in a new generation of AI-powered assistant features. Its investment suggests interest in new approaches to personal assistance.
Competition
Wabi competes in an increasingly crowded field. OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa and Meta's AI assistant are all vying to become the primary AI assistant for consumers. Startups are also building specialised assistants for productivity, scheduling and family organisation.
To succeed, Wabi will need to offer a distinctive experience, particularly in group coordination, that the large technology companies do not replicate.
Women in AI leadership
Kuyda's success stands out in an industry where women hold a small share of founder and leadership roles. Funding for women-led AI startups remains a fraction of the total, despite the sector's explosive growth. High-profile women founders such as Kuyda, along with leaders like Fidji Simo at OpenAI and Mira Murati, who founded Thinking Machines Lab, provide visible examples that may encourage more women to build AI companies.
Lessons for Indian founders
For Indian entrepreneurs, Wabi's model of consumer AI tools that help people organise their lives may resonate. India has a vast smartphone user base, heavy use of messaging apps such as WhatsApp for group coordination and a growing number of AI startups building consumer products in Indian languages. Group planning for weddings, festivals and family events is a large and culturally significant use case in India.
The broader funding environment
Wabi's round came amid a wave of large AI funding rounds announced the same week, including Cohere's Series E, Serval's $150 million round and Dulo's $130 million seed round. Investors are concentrating capital in AI companies they believe could become category leaders.
The companion AI debate
Kuyda's experience with Replika gives her unusual insight into how people interact with AI. Replika attracted users who formed close emotional connections with their AI companions, raising questions about the psychological effects of such relationships. Regulators in some countries scrutinised the app, and changes to its features prompted strong reactions from users.
These experiences have shaped wider debates about AI companions, which have grown into a significant category with many apps offering virtual friends and partners. Wabi's focus on practical, group-oriented tasks represents a different direction, emphasising utility rather than companionship.
Building for groups
Most AI assistants are designed for individual users, responding to one person's questions and requests. Building for groups introduces new challenges, such as understanding the preferences of multiple people, managing permissions and privacy, and coordinating actions that affect everyone involved. If Wabi can solve these challenges, it could carve out a niche that larger companies have not prioritised.
Group features could also help Wabi grow, because each user who invites friends or family brings new users onto the platform, creating network effects similar to those of messaging and social apps.
The investor roster
The list of individual investors in Wabi reads like a who's who of the technology industry. Tobi Lütke built Shopify into one of the largest e-commerce platforms, Marc Benioff founded Salesforce, Marissa Mayer led Yahoo and Dick Costolo ran Twitter. Their backing provides not only capital but also connections and credibility.
What comes next
Wabi will use the funding to develop its product and grow its user base. Its progress will be watched as a test of whether consumer AI assistants built around groups can find a large audience, and whether Kuyda can repeat the success she achieved with Replika in a more competitive market.
For women founders in AI around the world, Kuyda's latest milestone is another reminder that the field's most important companies need not be built only by men.
The coming months will reveal whether Wabi's group-focused approach can attract a large and engaged user base, and whether the company can find a sustainable business model, whether through subscriptions, premium features or partnerships with other services.
