The race to develop a winning AI assistant is on, and investors are widening their bets. On Thursday, another AI app, Wabi, which describes itself as a “personal agent,” announced it had raised $55 million at a valuation of $1.25 billion.
Founded by Eugenia Kuyda, who previously founded AI companion startup Replika, Wabi initially focused on enabling anyone to build apps using prompts. But last month, the startup announced a pivot of sorts to become an AI messenger.
The idea now is that the new Wabi (previously called Wabi 2.0), as part of its role as a personal AI agent, can build the interfaces it needs to get things done.
The company suggests that Wabi could be used to build mini-apps for meal planning, tracking local restaurants, planning date nights, creating fitness plans, designing professional trivia games, and more.
The additional funding shows Wabi’s investors agree that its new agent angle has some potential, especially given that the market for AI agents is hot right now, with viral AI agent Instinct raising another $1 billion in funding at a $10 billion valuation in September.
Even Tolan, which makes cute Muppet-like AI companions to help people with their lives, just raised $30 million.
“Eugenia has a unique feel for where AI is headed and a proven track record of great taste in building AI,” IVP general partner Alex Lim, who led the new round, said in a statement. “She has a clear vision for how people interact with AI, going far beyond text boxes and command lines. Wabi is an expression of that vision, and we’re excited to support her.”
Other participants in the round include Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Forerunner, Amazon Alexa Fund, and angel investors like Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and former Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, and Alex Paul, one half of The Chainsmokers.
If you buy through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect editorial independence.
