On 29 October 2026, personal-AI startup Wabi announced a $55 million funding round led by IVP at a $1.25 billion valuation, according to the company's press release distributed via PR Newswire and covered by SiliconANGLE. Other backers included Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Forerunner, the Amazon Alexa Fund, and angels such as Shopify's Tobi Lütke and Salesforce's Marc Benioff.
Wabi was founded by Eugenia Kuyda, who previously founded the AI companion Replika. Rather than one-on-one chatbot chat, Wabi is built around a shared, multiplayer personal assistant that generates mini-apps for groups of friends, couples and families — a 'group AI messenger' that relaunched as Wabi 2.0 about a month before the raise. The company says the capital will fund product development and a Windows app.
The round shows investors still betting big on consumer personal AI even as the companion market consolidates — see our 2026 industry report for the funding climate. Wabi disclosed 'strong early demand' but has not published user-base numbers.