Analysis
Wabi, the AI assistant built by Replika founder Eugenia Kuyda, raised $55 million at a $1.25 billion valuation in a round led by IVP, the company said Thursday, according to TechCrunch. Pulse first covered Wabi on October 19, when the company was already describing itself as a multiplayer personal AI assistant; what's changed since then is that the product now carries both a priced valuation and a marquee investor syndicate attached to what had been an unpriced launch.
What Wabi does
Wabi originally let anyone build simple apps from text prompts. In September, the company pivoted the product into what TechCrunch calls "Wabi 2.0," a messenger-style personal AI agent that builds the interfaces a user needs on the fly -- the company has suggested use cases like meal planning, tracking local restaurants and building fitness plans. Kuyda previously founded Replika, one of the best-known AI companion apps, before leaving to start Wabi. The pivot away from pure app-building comes as a wave of "personal agent" startups compete to be the default AI interface on a phone, a race that increasingly rewards distribution and taste over raw model capability.
Wabi's funding history
Wabi raised a $20 million pre-seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, announced in November 2025, with angel participation from Naval Ravikant, Garry Tan and Sarah Guo.
“Wabi raised a $20 million pre-seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, announced in November 2025, with angel participation from Naval Ravikant, Garry Tan and Sarah Guo.”
Less than a year later, this week's round values the company at $1.25 billion -- a markup the company has not broken down publicly, and one that arrives before Wabi has disclosed any user, revenue or retention figures.
Who invested in Wabi
IVP led the new round. "Eugenia has a unique sense for where AI is headed and a track record of great taste in building it," IVP general partner Alex Lim said in a statement carried by TechCrunch. Other participants include Andreessen Horowitz, Forerunner and the Amazon Alexa Fund, alongside a roster of operator angels: Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, former Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and Chainsmokers member Alex Pall.
Consumer AI agent market and competitors
Wabi's jump follows a run of outsized marks in the consumer AI agent category, per TechCrunch's reporting:
- Instinct -- raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation in September.
- Tolan -- the AI companion app raised $30 million.
Wabi's valuation puts it well behind Instinct's mark but ahead of most other early-stage consumer AI agent startups, most of which have not disclosed any outside valuation at all.
What to watch next
The operator-angel list reads as distribution insurance as much as capital -- Lutke, Benioff and Costolo each run or have run companies with enormous reach, and their personal checks suggest confidence in Wabi's product beyond what the round size alone implies. A $1.25 billion valuation less than a year after an unpriced pre-seed is one of the larger consumer-AI markups disclosed this quarter, and it arrives without an accompanying user or revenue number -- a gap that stands out next to rounds like Kalshi's, which cited specific revenue figures alongside its own valuation. The open question is whether Kuyda's pivot from Replika's companion format to a utility-first messenger retains users once novelty fades.