In a world that’s rapidly filling up with AI-generated content, a startup called First Voyage wants to help people avoid all the AI slop blasted their way and instead build the habits they want. And it’s doing that by way of an AI companion app: Called Momo Self Care, the app offers a digital pet called Momo that you can take care of, and in return, it’ll remind you to complete habit-building tasks.
Users can set up reminders for what tasks they want to complete, and Momo will remind you of them. Similar to the hit productivity app Focus Friend, Momo also rewards you with coins for completing tasks that can be used to purchase items within the app to further customize the pet. Users can also talk to Momo about self-care, and the AI companion will recommend habits and tasks based on what you want to achieve.
“Momo helps users become the best versions of themselves, and users reward Momo with care, affection, and cute accessories,” co-founder and CEO Besart Çopa told TechCrunch.
On Monday, First Voyage said it had raised $2.5 million in a seed funding round from a16z speedrun, SignalFire, True Global, and other investors.
Copa said Momo users have already created more than 2 million tasks on the platform, and the most popular habits relate to productivity, spirituality and mindfulness.
But with the wave of AI apps and toys hitting the market, not to mention the burgeoning influence of AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude and Grok, there’s increasing concern that these new, so-called “companions” can lead to more harm than good.
Çopa, for one, believes that relationships between AI characters and humans will only increase in the next few years. However, he noted that the increasing number of AI apps aimed at wellness and self-care is at least better than those that target base urges.
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“We are happy so many founders [and] startups are working in the AI self-care wellness space instead of building waifus,” he said, adding that the “personalization capability of AI will take the impact of these relationships to another level.”
He noted that Momo has baked in safety guardrails, such as prompt filters to make sure that conversations between the AI and users stay within appropriate boundaries.
The fresh cash from the fundraise will be used to help launch Momo on the Android app store (it’s already available on iOS). The First Voyage team also hopes to make Momo more intelligent in how it interacts with people.
“We hope Momo and the community around it become a defining consumer brand that uses the best of AI, animation, and gamification to improve as many lives as possible,” Çopa said.
