BeFake, a social networking app that mixes ideas from well-liked Gen Z app BeReal together with AI know-how, has netted itself $3 million in seed funding to create an AI-augmented social community. The app’s identify, a transparent reference to BeReal’s genuine picture sharing amongst associates, is supposed to counsel it does the other. As an alternative of displaying what you’re as much as proper now, BeFake customers additionally snap photographs with each the back and front cameras, however then customise their photographs utilizing AI know-how utilizing both in-app presets or customized prompts.
The app is the creation of Alias Applied sciences, an utilized AI firm that makes use of generative media and multi-modal AI techniques to create social media purposes.
Alias was based in 2021 by Kristen Garcia Dumont and Tracy Lane, the previous govt workforce behind the gaming large Machine Zone which was acquired by AppLovin in 2020. At Machine Zone, Dumont served as CEO main the event and launch of two worthwhile cell video games, together with World Conflict Rising and Remaining Fantasy XV: A New Empire, grossing north of $1 billion. Lane, in the meantime, was the previous COO, the place she dealt with neighborhood, moderation, compliance and platform partnerships.
Picture Credit: BeFake
Now the founders wish to riff on the real-time social community BeReal’s idea of push notification-driven posting with their very own app, which as a substitute leverages Alias’ AI know-how that lets customers enter textual content prompts to show their photographs into AI-augmented visuals. The thought is to let customers specific not essentially their complete authenticity, however fairly their genuine creativity.
Regardless of being in a seemingly totally different market from gaming, Dumont says there’s much more overlap between the 2 industries than some could understand.
“We leveraged AI for monetization,” she explains. That’s, “What’s the correct factor to supply a participant…when do you provide a sale, what do you set within the sale, how does the sale look, what’s one of the simplest ways to monetize that particular consumer?,” Dumont continues. “However we additionally then began to leverage it when it comes to participant matching.”
What they discovered was that when the algorithms labored, gamers had been higher retained and created relationships with one another, although they had been strangers from totally different elements of the world.
The thought of avid gamers making connections with each other with out utilizing their real-world identities then planted the seed for BeFake.
“They’ve a separate digital id that they leverage. And to see that the magical connection develop as a result of algorithms received it proper was positively a spark second,” Dumont notes.
Picture Credit: BeFake
Picture Credit: BeFake
With BeFake, the mechanics are much like different front-back apps like BeReal or its older precursor, Frontback. Customers first seize back and front photographs from their telephone, however then both pick a preset or sort out their very own immediate to create an AI picture.
The app presents each model prompts and customized location prompts, which embrace issues like fantasy imagery or letting you set your self on the highest of Mount Everest, for instance. In any other case, customers can sort out their very own prompts to create pictures of themselves in eventualities they think about.
Below the hood, the corporate is utilizing Secure Diffusion with a customized denoising loop. Its pipeline’s proprietary parts are centered on the truth that the app is supposed to be a social community. Which means it must work with every kind of various photographs, like candids, zoomed-in photographs, photographs with a number of folks and so forth.
Picture Credit: BeFake
And in contrast to another AI apps in the marketplace, BeFake doesn’t require customers to add dozens of selfies to get began. Plus, it applies its AI-powered modifications in lower than 30 seconds — and often in lower than 10. Nonetheless, customers spend, on common, at the least 10 minutes per session as they design their AI creations.
The augmented photographs could be shared with associates or in the primary discovery feed the place AI creators might construct a following, or they’ll put up to different social networks. You can also toggle forwards and backwards from the conventional picture to the AI model, which could be enjoyable. The corporate believes its idea will make for a extra fascinating feed than on BeReal as each picture will look distinctive.
Picture Credit: BeFake
Requested why they picked the identify “BeFake,” which clearly makes the app sound like a parody of BeReal versus a extra critical try to construct a standalone social community, Dumont defined they had been making an attempt to reject present social media — the “complete idea the place you both have to Facetune your self or completely curate your self.”
She says even BeReal is pretend, as its customers began to curate their “actual” moments on the app.
“It was hurry, run downstairs and faux you’ve got 20 associates. Brush your hair, take a aspect pic, proper? It was something however being genuine,” she says. “So it’s much less about BeReal and it’s way more about this full and complete rejection of the authenticity motion, which is inauthentic,” Dumant provides.
As BeFake was launched on the App Store and Google Play simply this month, the corporate is declining to share downloads or consumer adoption metrics, however notes that it’s seeing triple-digit week-over-week progress up to now.
BeFake generates income by way of subscriptions, which permit customers to pay for the compute time to create the AI pictures to allow them to put up exterior the time window or greater than as soon as per day. The subscriptions value $2.99/week, $9.99/month or $99.99/12 months. Nonetheless, the corporate does ship a constant push notification every day to alert customers to a 20-minute block of time once they can use the app to make their AI pictures without cost.
Going ahead, BeFake founders imagine their background in gaming will assist them keep related, as they realized you need to shortly adapt to customers’ evolving tastes with a purpose to retain them in the long run.
Picture Credit: BeFake
“A part of what we’ve constructed underneath the hood is the power to deploy modifications to the app nearly on a dime, much like gaming in order that we are able to reply to client tastes,” Dumont says.
“The moat with most AI apps shouldn’t be going to be the underlying know-how. We’ve a proprietary portion of our pipeline. I’m positive different folks do as properly. However what you need to have the ability to do is leverage open supply instruments. And because the open supply instruments get higher, so do you since you get to leverage these,” she continues. “So that you don’t wish to be too valuable about your engineering pipeline. Your moat is your neighborhood — that’s the moat in AI apps. So we’re very centered on constructing out that neighborhood and with a purpose to do that you just want to have the ability to be hyper-responsive to your neighborhood.”
A method the corporate is already shifting on this route is by studying what AI pictures customers favored to make its algorithms higher.
The 12-person, remotely-distributed firm can be in the present day asserting it’s backed by $3 million in seed funding led by Khosla Ventures. Different traders within the spherical embrace Subsequent Coast Ventures, Maveron Ventures, Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale and WS Investments. The spherical closed in April 2022, however hadn’t but been reported.