Ukrainian application Reface raises $5.5M from the US-based VC firm

Reface, a swap-face application from Ukrainian developers, has raised $5.5 million of funding from the American Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm and several business angels. Representatives of the company reported this news to AIN.UA.

Funding details

The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from the American angel investor TQ Ventures and other business angels.

According to the Reface representatives, the $5.5 million raised is planned to be spent to launch a social platform for content personalization through machine learning. According to Dima Shvets, co-founder and CBO of Reface, Andreessen Horowitz’s funds and network of contacts will also help expand partnerships and sign long-term contracts with music labels, movie studios, and celebrities.

“Over the last six months, Reface has demonstrated explosive growth, reaching the level of 70 million downloads. The funding from Andreessen Horowitz will help us maintain and accelerate growth, empower the team with new talents, and enhance the technology. We are currently working on a tool for the recognition of synthesized videos to ensure responsible use of our technology,” commented Denys Dmytrenko, co-founder of Reface.

About Reface

The first version of the swap-face application called Doublicat was launched in January 2020. Later it was renamed Reface, and in August, the application topped the American AppStore, being ahead of TikTok and Instagram. Since its launch in January, it was downloaded 70 million times and used by many American stars.

The project has seven co-founders: Roman Mogylnyi, Oles Petriv, Yaroslav Boiko, Ivan Altsybieiev, Denys Dmytrenko, Dima Shvets, and Kyle Sygyda.

The Reface R&D office is located in Kyiv. In 2020, the startup team consists of 100 people.

To recap, two Ukrainian startups, which worked in a similar direction, were acquired by the American company Snap: startup Looksery for $150 million and AI Factory for $166 million.