Veterans of the European startup scene, who’ve launched multiple consumer apps in the past, are partly coming out of stealth Tuesday with a new app. On the face of it, Grouphug will simply generate memes from the archive of a group WhatsApp chat. However, that masks a wider play.
Grouphug is led by Felix Petersen, one of the most experienced and seasoned B2C founders in Europe, who built the Amen and Plazes apps.
Right now, all users can do on Grouphug is export the text from a group WhatsApp chat and generate funny images from the content.
However, this is just a taster of things to come. Underlying this simple exercise to acquire beta users is an app still in stealth mode. But Petersen hinted to TechCrunch that the company plans to launch a platform to generate more value out of WhatsApp groups using generative AI.
“We think we’ve cracked AI humor. For now, Grouphug will create jokes based on what happened in the group. We turn your WhatsApp chats into memes. But then we have other plans for it,” he told TechCrunch. “There is this world of group chats where most of the things happening, like on Reddit or X, are conducted in public. But everything that’s in WhatsApp groups is not part of the public internet. That’s an opportunity.”
The startup has already raised a €1.5 million ($1.7 million) pre-seed round led by Berlin-based Blueyard VC, alongside Tiny VC, Charles Songhurst (a Meta board member), Atlantic Labs, and others.
Petersen is joined by Joseph Djenandji, who recently exited his well-known multi-channel travel brand LostIn. The third founder is Matthew Balazsi, who has worked on AI and ML for the last 10 years.