Wabi, the AI startup from Replika founder Eugenia Kuyda, has raised $55 million at a $1.25 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch AI. The company announced the round on Thursday. It now calls itself a “personal agent” instead of a no-code app builder. IVP led the round, and the cap table is crowded with big names.
⚡ Quick Take
- The deal: $55M raised at a $1.25B valuation, led by IVP.
- The pivot: Wabi started as a tool for building apps from prompts. Last month it relaunched as Wabi 2.0, an AI messenger that builds the interfaces you need as you go.
- The signal: Investors are spreading their bets across consumer AI agents, not just backing the big labs.
- The watch item: Wabi now has to show that people will actually live inside an agent that builds apps for them.
🧩 What Wabi Actually Does Now
The original Wabi pitch was simple. You describe an app, and Wabi builds it. That idea made it one of the more visible names in the “vibe coding for consumers” wave.
Wabi 2.0 changes the framing. You don’t open a builder to make an app anymore. You talk to your personal agent, and it creates small, purpose-built mini apps whenever a task calls for one. TechCrunch AI reports the company’s examples include:
- Meal planning
- Tracking local restaurants
- Planning date nights
- Building fitness plans
- Designing niche trivia games
That shift matters more than it might seem. Most AI assistants still answer in a wall of text. Wabi’s bet is that a lot of tasks work better with a small custom interface, like a checklist, a tracker or a game, built on the spot and kept around for later.
💰 Who’s Writing the Checks
IVP led the round. Other participants included:
- Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
- Forerunner
- Amazon Alexa Fund
- Angels including Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, former Yahoo head Marissa Mayer, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and The Chainsmokers’ Alex Pall
IVP general partner Alex Lim put the bet squarely on the founder.
“Eugenia has a unique sense for where AI is headed and a track record of great taste in building it,” he said. “She has a clear vision for how people will interact with AI, one that goes far beyond the text box or command line.”
The Amazon Alexa Fund is the name I’d watch most closely. Amazon has spent years trying to make a voice assistant people use for more than timers and weather. An agent that builds its own interfaces is exactly the kind of idea Amazon would want a close look at.
📈 Why This Matters
This is significant because it shows where consumer AI money is going right now. The chatbot layer is mostly locked up by OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and Meta. Startups can’t win by building another general chat window. They have to win on the experience around it.
Wabi isn’t alone in that bet. TechCrunch AI points to viral AI agent Instinct, which raised another billion at a $10 billion valuation in September, and to Tolan, the maker of a Muppet-like AI companion, which just raised $30 million. Agents and companions are clearly where consumer AI investors are putting their money.
Kuyda’s background helps explain the valuation. Replika was one of the first consumer AI products to build real emotional attachment with users, years before ChatGPT. Investors are betting she understands why people keep coming back to an AI product, and that’s the hardest thing to get right in consumer apps.
⚠️ The Open Questions
What stands out here is how recent the pivot is. Wabi 2.0 launched only last month, so this valuation is mostly about where the company is headed, not proof that the new product works. A few things to watch:
- Retention: Do people come back to their mini apps, or build one and forget it?
- Platform risk: ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude are all adding interactive, app-like outputs. Wabi has to stay ahead of features the giants can ship to hundreds of millions of users overnight.
- Monetization: The round doesn’t say how Wabi plans to make money from personal agents at scale.
🔭 What Comes Next
For builders and product teams, the takeaway is clear. The industry is moving from chat replies to generated interfaces, where the AI builds the tool instead of just describing it. Expect more assistants to produce small interactive apps on the fly, and expect the debate over whether the text box is the right interface for AI to get louder.
Wabi now has $55 million and a big-name cap table to prove its version of that future. You’ll find more details on the round in the original TechCrunch AI report.