Quora, the popular questions and answers website, has recently secured $75 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The company intends to utilize this investment to fuel the growth of Poe, its AI chat platform.
Quora’s approach to AI chatbots sets them apart from the competition. Rather than relying solely on YouTube ad revenue, Quora aims to build its own subset of the creator economy by enabling creators to earn a living through the development of captivating AI bots. Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo expressed his optimism about the new funding, stating that a significant portion will be allocated towards compensating bot creators through the platform’s recently-launched creator monetization program.
The creator monetization program, introduced by Quora in October, allows users who design bots or prompts on Poe to generate revenue. Moreover, developers who integrate bots with the Poe AI are also eligible for financial rewards. This funding round not only bolsters Quora’s commitment to creators but also enables the company to attract talented developers by offering them the prospect of compensation. With Poe providing access to a wide range of text and image AI models, including ChatGPT, DALL-E 3, Claude 2, Stable Diffusion, Llama, and more, creators are granted an extensive toolbox to explore.
Despite Quora’s valuation dropping from $1.8 billion to $500 million, as a result of changing market dynamics, D’Angelo remains positive about this new direction. The CEO believes that the shift reflects the evolving landscape influenced by rising interest rates and increased cost of capital. Nonetheless, the company is pleased to align with this new market position.
Since its launch approximately a year ago, Poe has been gaining momentum. D’Angelo revealed that Quora experienced its highest week of usage ever, with over 400 million monthly unique visitors. While Quora itself is already generating positive cash flow, the newly acquired funds will be solely dedicated to the Poe platform.
According to data from Apptopia, Poe’s mobile app witnessed over 250,000 downloads in its first month open to the public (February). By October, Poe had amassed over 18.4 million installs and attracted close to 1.22 million monthly active users. Commenting on Poe’s growth, a16z partner David George noted that the platform has become one of the top five largest generative AI-related properties, boasting over one million bots built by creators.
Quora’s latest funding round marks an important milestone towards empowering AI chatbot creators and expanding the potential of the platform. With its innovative approach and growing user base, Quora is steadily establishing itself as a significant player in the AI ecosystem.
The source of the article is from the blog coletivometranca.com.br