Replika Founder Raises $20M to Democratize App Creation With Wabi

Eugenia Kuyda , the founder behind Replika , raised a $20 million pre-seed funding round for Wabi, her latest venture that promises to democratize app creation. Described as the " YouTube for apps," Wabi is a social platform enabling anyone to create and share mini applications using simple prompts. Kuyda founded Replika in 2017, years before ChatGPT existed, and grew it into one of the world's largest AI companion platforms with 35 million active users. Now, with Wabi, Kuyda is attempting to solve another fundamental tech problem. How to make software creation as accessible as social media posting. Wabi's core promise is really simple but transformative. Users type what they want, for example, "build me an AI therapy app" or "create a daily fitness tracker," and the platform generates a fully functional mini app instantly. The platform handles everything from, user interface design, database setup, icon creation, and integration with AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini . Users never touch a line of code. "This 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," Kuyda told TechCrunch . "You don't need to be great at prompting. You never see the code." The platform launched in beta last month and has already generated significant buzz across social media. Early testers have shared examples of habit trackers, daily news summaries, pet photo generators, and productivity utilities. Even Google DeepMind's Logan Kilpatrick praised Wabi's agility and potential. The $20 million pre-seed round attracted an impressive roster of angel investors who've already backed various consumer platforms. Naval Ravikant ( AngelList co-founder), Garry Tan ( Y Combinator CEO), Justin Kan ( Twitch co-founder), Amjad Masad ( Replit CEO), Akshay Kothari ( Notion co-founder), DJ Seo ( Neuralink co-founder), and Sarah Guo ( Conviction founder) all backed the round. Anish Acharya , general partner at Andreessen Horowitz , articulated why investors believe in Kuyda's vision. "It's very rare to find someone who's got a track record for predicting what consumers will want, and we think she's doing it again." Acharya noted that Kuyda's success with Replika demonstrates her ability to build consumer AI at massive scale, and Wabi represents her next insight into how billions of people interact with technology. Vision and Execution While Wabi operates in a crowded sector, competing with vibe-coding tools like Cursor and Lovable , and no-code platforms like Replit and Emergent , its differentiation lies in the integrated social layer. Rather than publishing to traditional app stores, Wabi users share their creations directly into a social feed where others can like, comment, and build upon them. This social dimension transforms Wabi from a development tool into a platform for community creation and discovery. Early features include user profiles, remixing capabilities, and an Explore page highlighting trending apps. Personalized onboarding that automatically generates starter apps for new users will also be coming in the following weeks. "The social layer is absolutely critical because it allows for so much more creativity and discovery. These mini apps become community starters or conversation starters," said Kuyda. Gartner projects that over 70% of new applications will be developed via low-code or no-code approaches by 2025, driven by developer shortages and generative AI advancement. Wabi positions itself at the forefront of this trend, but with a unique consumer-first angle rather than enterprise focus. The platform handles the complexity of app development, database architecture, backend infrastructure, and deployment which leaves the users to focus purely on the creative front. Even basic errors that emerge during development can be debugged, with the community often providing fixes through the remix feature. Acharya envisions Wabi as a harbinger of what he calls "disposable software". Small, flexible applications built and discarded as easily as opening a new tab. "I think software is the final frontier of participation," he said. "The internet has always been about participation, yet so few people have been able to make it." This vision extends beyond mere functionality. "It feels like the internet has gotten sort of clinical," Acharya noted. "The opportunity with Wabi is to restore some of that strange, early '90s web energy." Kuyda has committed that Wabi will remain ad-free, prioritizing creative UX over monetization pressure. She learned this from Replika, where the absence of advertising enabled genuine delight rather than dark patterns. The company will use the pre-seed funding primarily to scale its product team and subsidize usage while exploring monetization pathways that don't compromise user experience, including creator subscriptions and revenue sharing.

Replika Founder Raises $20M to Democratize App Creation With Wabi

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