{"id":265267,"date":"2025-11-06T09:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T09:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/265267\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T09:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T09:40:12","slug":"replika-founder-raises-20m-pre-seed-for-wabi-the-youtube-of-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/265267\/","title":{"rendered":"Replika\u00a0founder raises $20M pre-seed for Wabi, the\u00a0\u2018YouTube\u00a0of apps\u2019\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eugenia\u00a0Kuyda\u00a0saw the future of consumer AI before most. She founded\u00a0Replika, the first major AI companion startup, in 2017 \u2014 years before ChatGPT launched. Today, it has\u00a035 million users.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now\u00a0Kuyda\u00a0is back with a new startup called Wabi, which she describes as YouTube for apps \u2014\u00a0a social platform where anyone can use prompts to instantly create\u00a0mini apps and share them with friends. Wabi, which launched in beta last month,\u00a0is a harbinger of another consumer AI shift: one where personalized software becomes the norm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wabi has\u00a0raised $20 million in pre-seed funding from a stellar list of angels, including AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant, Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, Twitch co-founder Justin Kan,\u00a0Replit\u00a0CEO Amjad Masad, Notion co-founder Akshay Kothari,\u00a0Neuralink\u00a0co-founder DJ Seo, and Conviction founder Sarah Guo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[Kuyda] was early and right to AI companions<\/a>, even though it wasn\u2019t obvious at the time,\u201d Anish Acharya, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, told TechCrunch. \u201cIt\u2019s very rare to find someone who\u2019s got a track record for predicting what consumers will want, and we think she\u2019s doing it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuyda\u00a0is entering a hot market. Vibe-coding tools like Cursor and Lovable have attracted significant VC interest, while\u00a0no-code AI platforms, including Emergent,\u00a0Replit, and Bloom, are racing to let non-technical users build apps through prompts.\u00a0Wabi\u2019s\u00a0difference: an integrated platform for creation, discovery, and hosting \u2014 no app store\u00a0required.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Eugenia Kuyda, founder of Wabi and Replika.Image Credits:Wabi<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was really made to help people who have nothing to do with coding or the tech world to very quickly create apps from their daily lives,\u201d\u00a0Kuyda,\u00a0who last week joined us onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025<\/a> to discuss AI companions, told TechCrunch.\u00a0\u201cAll you need to put in\u00a0is \u2018build me an AI therapy app,\u2019 and\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0it. It will suggest\u00a0features,\u00a0and you can brainstorm, but\u00a0it\u2019ll\u00a0build you an app. You\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0need to be great at prompting. You never see the code.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Wabi released certain social features to beta users \u2014 things like\u00a0the ability to like, comment, and remix any existing app, as well as\u00a0check out user profiles to see what others liked, used, or built.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

X has been blowing up about Wabi since it started dishing out invites to select users. Several founders<\/a>, designers<\/a>, and<\/a> investors<\/a> from around<\/a> the world<\/a> have<\/a> posted about Wabi\u2019s ease of creating apps for themselves. Even Google DeepMind product lead Logan Kilpatrick gave Wabi a shout-out<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

what if the app store was social?
with wabi, it is.<\/p>\n

introducing the social app store where you can instantly see what apps your friends are creating, loving, and remixing pic.twitter.com\/tfjltyZApv<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 wabi (@wabi) November 3, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that the social layer is\u00a0absolutely\u00a0critical because it allows for so much more creativity and discovery, and these mini apps become community starters or conversation starters,\u201d\u00a0Kuyda\u00a0said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wabi\u2019s Explore page currently features recent and popular apps, though Kuyda said it will become more algorithmic over time. The startup plans to launch personalized onboarding in the coming weeks, automatically generating starter apps for new users.<\/p>\n

Wabi\u2019s\u00a0core promise\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0too different from\u00a0ChatGPT\u2019s GPT store or the bot from Quora\u2019s Poe: Build mini apps using prompts that could solve small problems for you. Apps like Wabi have been able to package this promise well in terms of customers not having to set up any technical infrastructure. Even if you enter a few sentences, Wabi handles things like creating an icon or setting up\u00a0databases, and\u00a0deciding what the UI of the app would look like.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kuyda\u00a0told TechCrunch that for apps that require anything to be AI-generated, users can open the settings and choose their foundational model (like if they want to use ChatGPT or Gemini) and even rewrite the prompts that Wabi\u00a0comes up with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits:Wabi (screenshot)<\/p>\n

Creating a basic app is simple. However, you might need to debug the app to avoid errors, which is to be expected in a development life cycle.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example, we created an app that showed us a dog picture every day with a dog fact. After a few days of usage, we realized the app was generating the same set of dogs. When we saw another user\u2019s daily news app, all the dates mentioned on the summary photos were October 1, 2023, while the news items were a few weeks old. Plus, one of the sources for news was, oddly, Wikipedia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The onus is on the user to have an interest in\u00a0maintaining\u00a0the apps. Otherwise, you might find a lot of unmanaged mini apps in the\u00a0discovery section of these vibe-coding apps.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kuyda says\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0still early days for\u00a0Wabi,\u00a0and\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0still working out how to ensure that apps are ready to go out of the box.\u00a0She noted that there are still model constraints that are\u00a0improving\u00a0every day.\u00a0She says\u00a0a big chunk\u00a0of the $20 million will go toward\u00a0building out\u00a0Wabi\u2019s\u00a0product team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part of the funding is also going toward effectively subsidizing the use of Wabi until the startup figures out a monetization model.\u00a0Kuyda\u00a0says\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0not interested in hosting ads on the platform, which leads to incentives that create dark patterns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI built Replika<\/a> and never had any ads,\u201d she said. \u201cI think ads\u00a0just create a\u00a0pretty bad\u00a0user experience. I like creating delightful user experiences.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits:Wabi (screenshot)<\/p>\n

Acharya\u00a0believes\u00a0that once the network effects take off, it will be easy to monetize. He sees a future where\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0a professionalization element that will happen on the platform, where many of the kids today who want to be TikTok stars might instead make software on Wabi.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think about the history of\u00a0YouTube, it\u00a0started out as people putting these shaky, low-budget content experiences,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, 20 years later, it\u2019s super high production value.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Acharya\u00a0added\u00a0that there\u2019s\u00a0even more opportunity with software because \u201cvideo content has decaying value over time,\u201d he said. \u201cSoftware has compounding value.\u201d If somebody builds the next hit app, it\u2019ll continue to be relevant over the course of time.<\/p>\n

The idea fits neatly into Acharya\u2019s thesis on the future of \u201cdisposable software\u201d \u2014 small, flexible apps that people can create and discard as easily as opening a new tab or having a quick chat with ChatGPT.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think software is the final frontier of participation,\u201d Acharya said. \u201cThe internet has been this driving force for participation\u00a0\u2026 where anyone can post their thoughts.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0kind of strange\u00a0that the internet is obviously all software, yet so few people have been able to make it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

So\u00a0what does\u00a0a web3 look like when everyone can build and share software within a few minutes?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like the internet has gotten sort of clinical \u2014 we\u2019re all using the same Instagram, the same TikTok, we\u00a0all have the same home screens, apps have gotten pretty monotone,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the opportunity with Wabi is\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0going to restore\u00a0some of that punk, strange, early \u201990s web ethos.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n