cd /news/artificial-intelligence/heyyyyai-raises-10-5-million-from-on… · home › topics › artificial-intelligence › article
[ARTICLE · art-90949] src=runtimewire.com ↗ pub= topic=artificial-intelligence verified=true sentiment=· neutral

heyyyyAI raises $10.5 million from one investor for AI character app

HeyyyyAI, an AI character app startup founded by A Thinking Ape co-founders Wilkins Chung and Kenshi Arasaki, has raised $10.5 million from a single investor. The funding provides the founders, who previously sold their game studio to Embracer, with capital to test whether AI characters can become a durable consumer entertainment business.

read1 min views1 publishedAug 10, 2026
heyyyyAI raises $10.5 million from one investor for AI character app
Image: Runtimewire (auto-discovered)

A Thinking Ape co-founders Wilkins Chung and Kenshi Arasaki are back in consumer apps after selling their game studio to Embracer.

By Ryan Merket · Published

Why it matters #

The financing gives two founders with a proven record in mobile-game monetization substantial capital to test whether AI characters can become a durable consumer entertainment business.

Reader comments #

Conversation for this story loads after sign-in.

source & further reading
runtimewire.com — original article Meta open-sources Muse Glimmer agent model under Apache 2.0 Microsoft seeks capacity for 300,000 Maia 300 chips to cut AI costs Anthropic says unreleased Claude raised a Riemann-related lower bound
── more in #artificial-intelligence 4 stories · sorted by recency
── more on @heyyyyai 3 stories trending now
sponsored brought to you by zahid.host 4,200+ EU-deployed projects
reading about agents? ship yours in a single git push.

Run your AI side-project on zahid.host

EU-based hosting, git-push deploys, automatic HTTPS, no cold starts. Free tier with a custom domain — perfect for shipping the agent you just read about.

$git push zahid main
→ Live at https://your-agent.zahid.host ✓
Get free account → Pricing
from €0/mo · no card required
LIVE [news/heyyyyai-raises-10-5…] indexed:0 read:1min 2026-08-10 · —