Wabi Raises $55 Million From IVP at a $1.25 Billion Valuation, 31 Days After Relaunching as a Shared AI Messenger

Wabi, a San Francisco startup founded by Replika creator Eugenia Kuyda, raised $55 million in a round led by IVP at a $1.25 billion valuation, according to Tech Funding News on October 30, 2026. Forerunner, a16z and the Amazon Alexa Fund also invested, along with angels including Shopify chief executive Tobi Lütke, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff, Marissa Mayer, Dick Costolo and Alex Pall. Total funding is now about $75 million.

The Pivot

Wabi launched in beta in October 2025 as a way to build mini apps from prompts. Angels including Naval Ravikant, Garry Tan and Sarah Guo backed it at that stage. On September 28, 2026, Kuyda relaunched it as Wabi 2.0, a messenger with a personal agent that builds interfaces as needed. The public launch followed on October 19 for iOS, Android and Mac, with Windows to follow. The funding arrived 31 days after the relaunch, according to Tech Funding News.

How It Works

The agent keeps separate threads for different goals, and users can share threads in group chats. Tech Funding News gives the examples of a couple sharing a restaurant list and a family turning a weekly meal plan into a shopping list. Kuyda argues that single-thread agents get worse as the context in one chat grows.

The Founder

Kuyda built the chatbot that became Replika after the death of her best friend in 2015. The company grew to tens of millions of users, and she stepped down as chief executive in 2025 to start Wabi. She had launched an earlier company, IO, in 2014.

The Competition

Instinct raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation from Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Coatue, and is reportedly down to just 14 people, per Tech Funding News. Meta launched its Muse agent on September 8 and recorded 2.8 million downloads in the US and Canada in 12 days. Tolan raised $30 million on October 19 and has more than 250,000 active users. Nous raised $17 million for a UK household bills agent. By our arithmetic, Wabi's $1.25 billion valuation is about one eighth of Instinct's.

MarketsandMarkets forecasts the AI agents market growing from $7.84 billion in 2025 to $52.62 billion by 2030, as cited by Tech Funding News.

The Open Questions

Wabi is free and has no clear business model. Trust is another issue, since users can share email, calendar and bank details in a group thread. Kuyda says access is limited to the individual chat and everyone is notified when personal data is requested. Early testers of Instinct were concerned about a "perpetual and irrevocable" data licence. It is still unclear whether people want to share an assistant. If they do, Wabi is well ahead on group threads. If not, $1.25 billion is a high price for a free app without proven revenue.

What This Means for Founders

First, a fast pivot can attract capital when the team and the market are right. Wabi's round came a month after a relaunch, but that was a founder with a prior scaled product, so do not assume a pivot alone raises a round.

Second, a high post-money valuation with no revenue raises the bar for the next round. Plan milestones that justify the price, and think about how a down round would affect your cap table.

Third, trust is part of the product when you handle personal data. Be ready to explain data access, retention and licence terms in your data room, since investors will ask. Keep dilution in mind when angels join large rounds.

Browse the investor directory for more active funds, or explore active capital on AngelLinx @ angellinx.ai/register.

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