Replika founder launches Wabi, a $20M bet on shared AI assistants
What's the deal? Eugenia Kuyda, who left Replika as chief executive officer last year, has launched Wabi to all users — a multiplayer personal AI assistant built as a messenger app. Users can run several agent-driven chat threads at once, each dedicated to a task or long-term goal, and build custom mini apps inside them.
How it works: Connect Wabi to your email and it automatically spins up threads and apps, such as a weight-loss tracker in a health thread or a nearby children's events app in a family thread. Threads can be shared, functioning as group chats. The app is free and available on iOS, Android, and Mac.
Why now? Twelve years ago at TechCrunch Disrupt, Kuyda presented IO, a chatbot concierge from her earlier startup LukaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → that booked restaurants and vacations — years before the breakthroughs behind today's large language models. "It still worked," she told TechCrunch. "It was pretty magical … but, of course, it's nowhere near what we have today." Luka later became Replika; Wabi is her bet that the technology has finally caught up to the original vision.
What's the endgame? Kuyda is betting on a multithreaded, multiplayer design to stand apart from rivals like InstinctDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Meta's Muse. "Single thread experiences, if you think about it, get worse over time because it's just so much context in one endless conversation," she said. The longer a chatbot conversation runs, the more likely it is to hallucinate or lose track of context, according to AI researchers.
The money: Wabi raised a $20 million pre-seed round in 2025, led by Andreessen Horowitz with angels including Naval Ravikant, Garry Tan, and Sarah GuoDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Kuyda said the company is in talks to raise more but has not named investors.
What could go wrong? The launch comes as the personal-AI-agent category faces trust problems: Meta's Muse recently shared a user's home address with a stranger, and Character.AI filed for bankruptcy this year. Wabi ships SOC 2 compliance and stores most user data in the US, positioning against looser permission models. But the product is free with no settled business model and no disclosed revenue plan.
The signal: Wabi is a bid to define a category rather than proof of a viable business. Its pitch — a shared, persistent workspace instead of a one-to-one chatbot — tests whether AI assistants can become collaborative products. "I don't think anyone has yet cracked multiplayer," Kuyda said.
Read more: TechCrunch
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
