Wabi raises $55 million at a $1.25 billion valuation for its personal AI agent

Wabi has secured $55 million at a $1.25 billion valuation, putting fresh capital behind an AI assistant that builds small apps as part of helping people get things done. The IVP-led financing, disclosed October 29, follows the startup’s shift from a prompt-based app builder toward a messenger and personal agent.

The app builder moves inside the conversation

Founded by Eugenia Kuyda, who previously founded the AI companion startup Replika, Wabi originally let people create apps by describing what they wanted in prompts. In September, it recast that product as Wabi 2.0, an AI messenger. App creation remained part of the offering, but became something the assistant could do while helping with a task.

The company’s pitch is that its agent can build the interface a person needs for a particular activity. Instead of only returning a written answer, Wabi proposes creating a small piece of software for the job. Its suggested uses include meal planning, tracking local restaurants, organizing date nights, creating fitness plans and designing specialized trivia games.

Shared conversations are another part of that design. Bloomberg’s October 29 reporting, summarized by PYMNTS, described an assistant users can bring into group chats to plan trips, line up schedules and manage daily tasks. Conversations can become shared tools, such as travel itineraries. Users can also request appointment bookings and shopping returns.

Wabi’s latest product update arrived October 19, before this financing. The new funding will support work on its software for group coordination and decision-making, according to Bloomberg.

Investors back an everyday-use pitch

Andreessen Horowitz, Forerunner and Amazon Alexa Fund joined IVP in the round. Individual investors included Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, former Yahoo head Marissa Mayer, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and The Chainsmokers’ Alex Pall.

Andreessen Horowitz general partner Anish Acharya offered a more specific audience argument. He told Bloomberg the firm participated because Kuyda has a strong intuition for building AI for everyday Americans. His criticism of many other agents was that they are “built by technologists for technologists.”

Kuyda’s stated goal puts the emphasis on what people do with the time an assistant frees up. She told Bloomberg that AI should not merely save time, but help people spend it better, doing more of what they love with people they love.