Consumer AI Assistants - Language and Reading Learning, Relationship Mentoring, Calorie Counting, Visa Applications
Besides generalist AI assistants, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Character.ai and Luzia, there is a variety of consumer niches that are a great fit for AI applications. They include education, relationship mentoring, calorie counting, and visa applications. Here are some of the early stage companies in these areas who raised funding in 2023.
With the tagline “Visas Made Easy”, Atlys is a portal towards faster and more convenient visa applications. The app, available on the iOS app store, provides an automated way to input your travel and document information, submit it for applications to your travel destinations, pay the required fees and get status updates on the approval process. The average time to apply for a visa on Atlys is about 4 minutes and it covers 233 countries.
Based in San Francisco, CA, Atlys last raised a US$12M Series A in September 2023 from VCs including a16z, South Park Commons, Peak XV Partners and Elevation Capital. The company had previously secured $5 million in a Seed round in 2021.
Meeno is an AI-powered relationship mentoring app with a mission to help people master the skill of human connection and end loneliness. Targeted primarily at young adults (18 to 30 years old), it aims to help with all the relationships in the users’ lives, from friends to family, from romance to work. Meeno is being built to act as a mentor to help people be their best self and to make space for the person to be heard, seen and feel secure sharing what it going on in their lives. It offers personalized coaching exercises, primarily crafted and curated for Gen Z. Currently available for pre-order on the iOS app store in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Netherlands, it has a subscription business model, and is comes with the first 12 months free.
Based in San Francisco, CA, Meeno last raised a US$3.9M Seed round in September 2023 led by Sequoia with participation from New Enterprise Associates and AI Fund.
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Ello is an AI-enabled coach that helps children learn how to read by listening to them practice, provide feedback and motivate them to become enthusiastic readers. The subscription-based service sends users 5 books each month that childred can use to read to Ello and receive rewards based on their progress. At the end of the month, the books can be returned or bought for US$5 each. Build for children between the ages of 4 to 8, Ello is available through the iOS and Android app stores.
With the tagline “Read Reading, Real Learning, Real Fun”, Ello is based in San Francisco, CA and it last raised a US$15M Series A round in September 2023 and it has been backed by VCs including Khosla Ventures, Homebrew, Goodwater Capital, Project A Ventures, Reach Capital and Visible Ventures.
With the tagline “AI Language Tutor in Your Pocket”, Quazel is an app that teaches people conversational fluency in a foreign language. With support for 20+ languages, it allows its users to choose what words and topics they learn about, it offers real-life quests to practice their skills, such as ordering a croissant in a bakery in Paris, and provides instant grammar and vocabulary feedback. After a free trial, Quazel offers subscriptions for 1, 3 or 12 months for consumers, as well as a business-focused version for language schools and private language tutors.
Based in Zurich, Switzerland, Quazel raised a EUR1.5M Seed round in July 2023 from Khosla Ventures.
SnapCalorie uses computer vision to provide one photo calorie tracking. Acting as a personal nutrition assistant, it works with human experts to label the pictures of food plates and measure portions size for accurate calorie counting. Available through applications on iOS and Android, SnapCalorie integrates AI algorithms into its meal tracking tool to improve users’ health, providing better accuracy than non-computer vision-assisted nutrition analysis methods.
Based in Great Falls, Virginia, SnapCalorie raised a US$2M Seed round in June 2023 from VCs including Accel, Y Combinator and Index Ventures.
Are you building or using other cool consumer AI assistants? Let me know so I can check them out, too.