The competition to create the ultimate AI assistant is intensifying, prompting investors to spread their capital across various ventures. On Thursday, Wabi, a startup now positioning itself as a "personal agent," revealed it has secured $55 million in funding with a post-money valuation of $1.25 billion.
Eugenia Kuyda, the founder of the AI companion startup Replika, established Wabi with the initial goal of enabling anyone to generate applications via prompts. However, the company recently announced a strategic pivot, shifting its focus to operate primarily as an AI messenger.
The new strategy for Wabi, dubbed Wabi 2.0, is to function as a personal AI agent capable of constructing the specific interfaces required to complete tasks.
Wabi envisions a wide range of applications for this technology, including building mini-apps for meal planning, tracking local restaurants, planning date nights, creating fitness routines, and designing specialized trivia games.
This additional capital indicates that Wabi’s investors are bullish on its new agentic direction, especially considering the current market heat surrounding AI agents, highlighted by the viral success of Instinct, which recently reached a $10 billion valuation in September.
This trend extends to other competitors as well; Tolan, which creates a muppet-like AI companion to assist users with daily life, recently raised $30 million.
The round was led by IVP, with General Partner Alex Lim commenting, "Eugenia has a unique sense for where AI is headed and a track record of great taste in building it," in a statement. "She has a clear vision for how people will interact with AI, one that goes far beyond the text box or command line. Wabi is the expression of that vision, and we’re thrilled to support her."
The round also featured participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Forerunner, the Amazon Alexa Fund, and a roster of angel investors including Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, former Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, and musician Alex Pall.
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