Ein Team von 12 Personen hat ein sensationelles KI-Begleitprodukt entwickelt und binnen sechs Monaten Investitionen in Höhe von 30 Millionen US-Dollar gewonnen.

Can an app that has only been around for half a year secure $30 million (approximately 215 million RMB) in financing with AI companionship?

This app is called Tolan. It was officially launched in February this year, and the entire company only has 12 employees.

Since its launch, Tolan has been downloaded over 3 million times. It generates over $1 million in monthly revenue and has a cumulative total of 100,000 paying users.

In Tolan, virtual characters "from outer space" will become your AI companions.

The company's founder, Quinten Farmer, introduced that the function of Tolan is to provide emotional value to users:

We pay special attention to tracking changes in people's autonomy and self - confidence, as well as changes in the stability/health of their real - world relationships.

AI Companionship without "Being Human"

According to the official introduction, the animated characters in Tolan are AI alien characters that can accompany users for a long time and provide understanding and support.

When using it for the first time, the system will determine the user's personality traits through dialogue and then match a suitable AI character.

Users can communicate with the matched characters on any topic, from what to cook for dinner to how to prepare for an exam.

Tolan also has an image recognition function, which can facilitate better communication by incorporating visual information during chats.

Moreover, these AI characters will learn and grow based on their interactions with human users.

In terms of emotional value, this is how Tolan's official describes it:

It doesn't try to completely imitate you. Its taste may be slightly different from yours, but it's someone you can resonate with.

Tolan was originally designed to provide a brand - new way of artificial intelligence companionship.

Therefore, all the characters in it have cartoonish, non - human appearances to avoid anthropomorphism. They even encourage users to put down their phones and engage in real - life activities.

User Brittany Johnson said that she chats with her Tolan companion, Iris, every morning before going to work.

Johnson introduced that Iris encourages her to share her hobbies, friends, family, and colleagues.

She knows these people and will ask, "Have you talked to your friends? When are you going out next time?" She also asks, "Have you taken the time to read books or watch videos - the things you like?"

In a study of 602 Tolan users, 72.5% of users agreed that Tolan helped them manage or improve their real - life relationships.

In terms of the revenue model, Tolan makes a profit through subscriptions. Users can choose to pay $4.99 per week, $10 per month, or $70 per year, and they can try it out before paying.

Two Rounds of Financing, Securing $30 Million

Since its launch, Tolan has been downloaded over 3 million times, with over 100,000 paying users and monthly revenues exceeding $1 million.

This month, Portola, the company behind Tolan, completed a $20 million Series A financing round. This round of financing was led by Khosla Ventures and its Managing Director, Keith Rabois.

Other investors include the investment firm NFDG, founded by former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, who was recently recruited by Meta, and Daniel Gross, co - founder of SSI founded by Ilya.

In February this year, Portola also received a $10 million seed - round financing, led by Lachy Groom, a former executive at the payment company Stripe.

At that time, Nat Friedman and Daniela Gross also participated in the investment.

Other investors also include Amjad Masad, CEO of Replit, Mike Krieger, co - founder of Instagram, and David Luan, former vice - president of engineering at OpenAI (now at Amazon).

Combining the two rounds of financing, Tolan has secured $30 million in investment for Portola in less than half a year since its official release.

Founder Farmer also said that Tolan is expected to generate $12 million in revenue from its subscription business this year.

Shifting from Children's Education to AI Companionship

Quinten Farmer, the founder of Portola, was the co - founder and CEO of the fintech company Even.

Even was Farmer's entrepreneurial achievement during his student days. It was founded in 2014 when Farmer was studying computer science at Columbia University.

In 2022, Even was acquired by retail giant Walmart for $300 million.

Over a year later, Farmer founded Portola in San Francisco.

In addition, Portola's co - founders include Evan Goldschmidt, the CTO and a former senior software engineer at Google, and Ajay Mehta, the president and a serial entrepreneur.

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Currently, Portola has 12 employees, including engineers, writers, and creative personnel, and is currently hiring.

Before launching Tolan, Portola aimed to develop educational and interactive software for children.

However, its products failed to impress parents, who are the ones who ultimately pay for children's products, resulting in insufficient market profitability.

So Portola turned its attention to the young demographic and conducted market research.

They found that among young users, there is a very common emotional state - a sense of overwhelm.

This state is not traditional loneliness but a sense of oppression from the complexity of life and the density of information.

Portola believes that if AI can give them a feeling of "being understood" and "being listened to," it can effectively relieve this psychological pressure.

With this goal in mind, Portola released a test version of Tolan in December last year and officially launched it in February this year.

In the meantime, Tolan has gained a total of 500,000 users, most of whom are young women according to statistics.

Farmer said that Tolan will launch a free version this month.

Are you looking forward to having an AI companion like this?

Reference Links:

[1]https://www.geekwire.com/2025/ai-companionship-app-tolan-raises-20m-to-help-more-people-grow-with-a-virtual-alien-friend/

[2]https://www.tolans.com/relay/introducing-tolan

[3]https://www.wired.com/story/tolan-chatbot-ai-companion/

[4]https://every.to/podcast/transcript-this-ai-alien-will-bring-in-4-million-a-year-in-revenue

This article is from the WeChat official account "Quantum Bit," written by Keleixi and published by 36Kr with permission.