Skye, an unreleased iPhone app from New York-based Signull Labs, has raised more than $3.58 million in pre-seed funding at a $19.5 million post-money valuation, according to an SEC filing and a Pitchbook listing. The round closed in September 2025, months before the startup had a public product or even a named founder. Backers include a16z, True Ventures, SV Angel, and Offline Ventures.
The pitch is an "agentic home screen" for iOS, built on widgets rather than a chatbot window. Skye is meant to surface ambient information — local weather, calendar context, health data, suspicious bank charges, location-aware recommendations — pulled in through user-authorized integrations. It can also draft email replies and prep meeting notes.
Founder Nirav Savjani, who posts on X under the handle signüll and has appeared on the TBPN podcast as an avatar, confirmed his identity to TechCrunch through SEC filings even as he asked to keep the pseudonym in coverage. He has previously worked at Google and Meta, though he keeps no public LinkedIn profile.
Key facts
- 01Signull Labs raised more than $3.58M in pre-seed funding, per its SEC filing, with the round closing in September 2025.
- 02Pitchbook lists the company's post-money valuation at $19.5M.
- 03Backers include a16z, True Ventures, SV Angel, and Offline Ventures.
- 04The Skye waitlist sat above 25,000 before the April 14, 2026 launch video, which drew roughly 1 million views and added tens of thousands more signups.
- 05Founder Nirav Savjani, who posts as signüll, previously worked at Google and Meta.
The waitlist had already crossed 25,000 before Savjani posted a launch video on April 14, 2026. That video pulled roughly 1 million views, added tens of thousands more signups, and triggered "hundreds and hundreds of emails and DMs from investors," Savjani wrote on X.
“Signull Labs closed $3.58M in pre-seed funding at a $19.5M post-money valuation in September 2025, before Skye had shipped a single public build.”— Jaeden Schafer
Skye is wagering that the next interface for consumer AI on the iPhone is not another chat app but the home screen itself. Most well-funded consumer AI products to date — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity — still ask the user to open an app and type a prompt. Skye wants the assistant to surface what matters before the user asks.
The widget-first approach is also a workaround for Apple's grip on iOS. Without deep system access, third-party developers cannot replace Siri or rewrite the launcher. Widgets are the closest thing Apple offers to passive, always-on real estate, and Skye is trying to turn that surface into a personalized feed.
The funding context matters. A $19.5 million post-money round for a pre-launch consumer app is aggressive but not unusual in the current AI cycle, where teams with credible technical pedigree have been pricing pre-seeds well above historical norms. The a16z and True Ventures names give the round signal beyond its size.
There is also a hardware overhang to consider. AI Chat Daily reported earlier this month that OpenAI is working with MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Luxshare on an AI-agent smartphone. If a dedicated AI device materializes, an iOS-bound widget app becomes a transitional product rather than a destination.
Savjani told TechCrunch that Skye plans to open to its waitlist soon but declined to commit to a date. The app remains in private testing, and none of the demo functionality — bank charge flagging, location recommendations, email drafting — has been independently verified by reviewers outside the founder's own X posts.
The skeptical read is straightforward. A million views and tens of thousands of waitlist signups measure curiosity, not retention. Consumer AI apps have a well-documented pattern of strong launch numbers followed by steep usage drop-offs once the novelty fades, and ambient assistants live or die on whether the suggestions are actually useful in the first week.
Still, Skye is one of the few funded bets on what an AI-native phone experience looks like inside the constraints Apple already imposes. If Savjani can ship something that genuinely changes how people glance at their lock screen, the $3.58 million pre-seed will look cheap. If not, it becomes another data point that consumer AI distribution still runs through the operating system vendors, not the app layer.
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