Insider Brief
- Tomo, a personal AI companion that operates through text messages, has raised $5 million in a seed round led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from Accel, Conviction, and Pear VC, to grow its team and expand its recently launched companion app following word-of-mouth growth to over 10,000 paying customers while still in stealth.
- The product operates as a phone number users text, learning their goals and motivations to deliver reminders, accountability, and personalised guidance, with users engaging an average of 20 out of 30 days per month across habit tracking, budgeting, fitness, and scheduling, with integrations into calendar, email, Notion, and Google Drive.
- Co-founders CEO Justin Quan and CTO Raymond Chen, with backgrounds at Harvey and MrBeast, have a longer-term vision of building the most trusted consumer AI in the world, with the companion app generating and evolving personalised software interfaces automatically based on each user’s behaviour and goals, rather than requiring manual configuration.
PRESS RELEASE — Tomo, the personal AI champion that lives in your text messages, has announced a $5 million seed round led by Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), with participation from Accel, Align Fund, Basis Set, Conviction and Pear VC, along with angel investors. The funding will be used to grow the team and expand its recently launched companion app.
Tomo is deceptively simple: it’s a phone number you text. It learns who you want to become, remembers what matters to you and helps you make small decisions today that your future self will thank you for tomorrow.
On word-of-mouth alone while in stealth, Tomo helped over 10,000 paying customers achieve their goals. People reach out 20 out of 30 days a month — numbers that rival the most-loved apps in the world — to chat with Tomo and get reminders and motivation to achieve their long-term goals.
“We started Tomo because the best way to live a more meaningful life is to take a bet on yourself and focus on what matters,” said Justin Quan, co-founder and CEO of Tomo. “We make it easy and simple to find that focus. Tomo is like a future version of yourself that already learned the lessons you’re still figuring out.”
The product has attracted fiercely loyal users who text Tomo food photos for calorie tracking, bank statement screenshots for budgeting, and screen time reports for accountability. Tomo can join group chats, send reminders, watch videos, edit photos and connect to your calendar, email, Notion and Google Drive. Unlike dedicated apps built for a single task, users trust Tomo to understand their goals, motivations and individual challenges.
In addition to the iMessage interface, Tomo just launched a companion app for users who text Tomo more than 20 days a month. The companion app generates personalized software experiences that evolve alongside the user. For example, if someone wants to improve their fitness, Tomo can generate a workout-tracking interface, then adapt it over time as it learns more about their habits and goals, like training for a marathon. A user saving for a car might receive a budgeting interface centered on a car-shaped savings tracker personalized to their target purchase. For users struggling to wake up on time, Tomo can even generate daily games that only unlock during their intended morning routine. Rather than forcing people to configure software themselves, Tomo builds and updates interfaces automatically based on the patterns, behaviors and motivations it understands through conversation.
Co-founders Justin Quan and Raymond Chen, CTO, previously built agentic app platforms and created viral apps. The founding team has early experience from Harvey, MrBeast and as previous founders themselves. The team’s collective expertise enables them to build the right, winning product that’s as helpful as it is delightful.
The company’s long-term vision is to build the most trusted consumer AI in the world. Tomo sits at the intersection of engineering, psychology and anthropology, learning not just what users ask for, but when to step in, when to stay quiet and how to help people move toward the version of themselves they want to become. That trust unlocks entirely new technical challenges, from proactive interventions and personalized interfaces to purchases and workflows completed on a user’s behalf. As Tomo grows, the team believes the future of consumer software is AI understanding people well enough to automatically build the right products, interfaces and workflows around them.
“Justin and Raymond have a rare gift for products and experiences — they understand what it takes to win user trust at scale,” said Ryan Kim, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures. “They’ve built one of the few consumer products where what keeps people coming back and what’s good for them are the same thing.”
Tomo is available now. Learn more at https://www.tomo.ai/.
About Tomo
Tomo is your personal AI champion to bet on yourself. Tomo lives in your texts and helps you build better habits, stay accountable to your goals, and actually follow through, without downloading another app you’ll never open. Tomo is based in San Francisco and is backed by investors like Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), Accel, Conviction and Pear VC. Learn more at https://www.tomo.ai/.
Contacts
Media Contact
Rachel Colson
rcolson@baincapital.com
