Shapes, an app that places AI characters alongside humans in shared group conversations, emerged from stealth in April 2026 with $8 million in seed funding. The round was led by Lightspeed, with participation from AI Capital Partners, AI Grant, and angel investors.
Founded in 2022 by Anushk Mittal and Noorie Dhingra, Shapes has more than 400,000 monthly active users and has seen a sixfold increase in users since the start of 2026, driven primarily by word of mouth. Thousands of users reportedly spend two to four hours in the app each day.
The app functions similarly to Discord, with group chats at its core. AI characters — also called “Shapes” — appear as regular participants in those chats, clearly labeled for transparency. Users can create their own Shapes, assign them personalities, and add them to group conversations. To date, users have created three million Shapes. Many are tied to fandom communities, giving fans a space to discuss shared interests alongside other people.
The founders designed Shapes partly in response to concerns about “AI Psychosis” — a term they use to describe cases where prolonged one-on-one interactions with AI chatbots can lead individuals to develop delusions or paranoia. By embedding AI within conversations that already include real people, Shapes aims to avoid that kind of isolation.
“Our lives run on group chats,” CEO Mittal told TechCrunch. “It’s just natural to bring in AI into those same conversations where AI has all of the context and is readily available to help you.”
Unlike AI companions on other platforms that must be summoned, Shapes can initiate conversations independently. The company says this helps prevent group chats from going dormant when participants hesitate to send the first message.
Shapes plans to use the new funding to accelerate development and user acquisition. Mittal described the app’s target audience as people who are “obsessively online” and who spend significant time connecting and sharing in digital spaces.
Source: TechCrunch