Earlier this month, Google released a new feature for its Pixel 9 series phones that lets users add the photographer to the group photo by swapping someone out and taking another photo. A new social network from an Oxford PhD duo is working on an app that lets you add friends to a photo in a more memorable and fun way.
Vybe is a mobile app that lets you upload a selfie and insert your face into any image or existing template. It also lets you swap the faces of you and your friends in a multi-person image. The tool also changes the skin tone of the person in the template based on your skin tone, so there are no discrepancies between the face and the rest of the body.
Users can see photos created by their friends in a feed and also upload their own templates. The startup believes this will encourage more people to create content on the platform. Vybe said it has more than 100,000 user-generated templates and the number is growing quickly as creating a template requires little effort.
The company has built a social network around it to encourage people to connect more. While this is currently its core offering, the startup wants to develop more photo and video-related tools that combine social networking, AR and generative AI.
Vybe has raised $4.75 million in seed funding in a round led by Stellation Capital with support from Scribble Ventures, Coalition Operators, Neo, and Blueprint FTC. Additionally, individuals such as NFL player Kelvin Beachum, early investors from Facebook and Uber, Ali Partovi, and Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer of OpenAI, also contributed to the round.
The company was founded by two Oxford PhD students, Dr. Mandela Patrick and Dr. Arnab Ghosh, who worked at Meta and Snap respectively. Patrick’s research focused on multimodal AI video and image understanding. He later worked on core AI algorithms for Instagram Reels. Meanwhile, Ghosh researched generative models for image rendering. At Snap, he worked on introducing generic AI features like the Bitmoji background.
The co-founders said they wanted to build a social product with a network effect. They also believe it makes sense to build a one-click tool for actions that used to take a lot of time – like placing faces of you and your friends on a photo.
“When I was at Snap, I saw how small details can make a difference in adoption. While Photoshop was available for years, Snap allowed users to have different experiences with lenses on a larger scale,” Ghosh said.
While face-swapping apps like Reface already exist, Vybe’s co-founders hope that making it easy for users to create templates and remix them will create a network.
“If you think about successful social products, they had a distinctive format. For example, with Snapchat it was disappearing messages, and we think AI-powered photos with your friends is that format for us,” Patrick said.
The company is currently exploring brand partnerships, advertising and subscription revenue streams, and is preparing to introduce features such as video and animation support in the app.
Peter Boyce II, the founder of Stellion Capital, believes that the founders have a high level of knowledge and interest in AI, which will help them understand the platform better. He believes that the easy and smooth use of the product will help Vybe succeed.
“When all the technology they’ve been working with takes a back seat and what’s left is a simple, easy, fun way to connect with different people. And those, to me, are the ingredients for something that goes mainstream,” he told TechCrunch.
BeReal, which used a format that encouraged people to share in real time when they received a notification had problems when it comes to Sustaining growth and generating revenue. The company was eventually acquired by French mobile app and games publisher Voodoo.
Vybe’s co-founders and investors believe the company will succeed because it wants to create more formats and involve users in the creation process, but they stressed that it is important not to create behavior that causes user fatigue.
The app is available for download for iOS and Android.
