Yolk is a camera-first social app that converts whatever users point their iPhone at into segmented, looping “live stickers” using on-device AI (Apple Vision APIs, segmentation and an open-source face-parsing model). The app forbids typed text, pushing communication toward short animated selfies, hand gestures and custom collages shared in a feed and one-to-one messages. Profiles act as curated collections of expressive stickers and the product emphasizes a raw, retro “messthetic” aimed at teens and people in their early 20s. The team is building out of Singapore and the Netherlands and the three co-founders are Piet Walraven, Meiwin Fu and Zihui Chen. Yolk is iPhone-only and just exited beta with an official launch on February 26. Financially, the startup secured $1.25M in pre-seed funding from a mix of Asian funds and angels and plans to experiment with subscription and premium features as potential monetization paths. Growth plans described in the article include TikTok marketing, outreach via Telegram/WhatsApp groups, university outreach and an invite-gated onboarding flow to encourage networked adoption.

Total raised

$1M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Feb 2024