Exclusive: Sekai raises $20M for AI app creation
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Sekai has raised a $20 million Series A to grow a platform for creating mini apps through text prompts, founder and CEO Lucky Zhang exclusively tells Axios.
Why it matters: The founder, who previously sold startups to Apple and TikTok parent ByteDance, is betting AI-generated software is the next breakout consumer app.
How it works: Sekai is available as an iOS and Android app where people can play with others' mini apps and create their own by describing an app idea in prompts. Users can also remix others' apps.
- Suggested prompts include: make an app that "picks my outfit based on the weather, my mood and what's clean in my closet" or "a quiz that tells me which fairy-tale villain I am based on my pettiest comebacks and pet peeves," as Axios viewed.
- Users have created more than 15 million mini apps, with more than 200,000 generated daily. On average, people spend more than an hour per day on the app, according to the company.
- Zhang says Sekai's early traction came from highly shareable creations, including interactive birthday cards.
Follow the money: Khosla Ventures and Connect Ventures co-led the Series A round, with a16z Speedrun, Mayfield, A*, MVP Ventures, 359 Capital, Parable VC and 645 Ventures participating.
- Connect Ventures launched in 2020 as a joint investment firm by Creative Artists Agency and New Enterprise Associates. The firm's co-founder and managing partner Nicole Quinn tells Axios that she was drawn to Sekai's engagement metrics and inspiring human creativity.
- "The fact that customers are spending over an hour a day on Sekai is the kind of signal that we look for that there's true obsession with a product — a product that I think could be the future of joy," Quinn says.
- Sekai raised $6 million in seed funding, led by Mayfield, in 2025.
Catch up quick: Founded in 2024, Sekai is Zhang's fourth startup. Apple acquired his video e-commerce company Yi+ AI in 2017. Bytedance acquired Latin America-based short-video platform Blacktail in 2020. He founded NCT, a music streaming service in Vietnam, which is still running.
- Sekai, which means "world" in Japanese, initially focused on anime fan-fiction experiences before expanding into broader app creation after AI coding models improved dramatically last year, Zhang says.
The big picture: Zhang says Sekai is designed to feel less like passive social media consumption and more like creative participation, where app creation is a form of online expression.
- "We want this to be something that's not doomscrolling," Zhang says. "The way to get rid of doomscrolling is asking you to interact. It could be to actively build or to actually engage."
- The rise of AI coding tools has made software creation much easier. Zhang says he sees mini apps as a new format similar to how short-form video reshaped social media.
- "You don't call any of the content you create AI slop," Zhang says. "It's helping you to fulfill your ideas."
What's next: Sekai is hiring for its engineering and product teams.
- Quinn says she's working with Sekai on potential creator and celebrity partnerships through its relationship with CAA.
- Sekai plans to help creators earn money through apps and interactive fan experiences built on the platform, Zhang says.
