Who owns Replika? Replika is owned and operated by Luka, Inc., a privately held Delaware corporation based in San Francisco. Its disclosed backers include Khosla Ventures and Sherpa Capital. Dmytro Klochko is CEO, founder Eugenia Kuyda is now an advisor, and the company has never published its shareholder percentages.

That answer is harder to find than it should be. Search for it and you mostly get company database profiles, several of them out of date, and they disagree with each other on the founding year and even on who runs the company. This guide goes back to the company's own legal notice, its funding press release, a regulator's decision and dated press reports, then explains what operators and affiliates in the AI companion market can take from how Replika is structured. Everything here was checked on November 4, 2026.

Who owns Replika right now?

Replika's legal notice names Luka, Inc. as the company behind the app, represented by Dmytro Klochko as Chief Executive Officer, registered with the Delaware Division of Corporations under number 5663246, with a San Francisco office at 490 Post St. Its terms of service describe Luka as the software company that designed and built Replika, and the homepage footer carries a 2026 Luka, Inc. copyright line.

Luka is a private company, so the people and firms who own its shares are not listed anywhere public, and no percentages have been disclosed. Here is what the record does show:

PartyWhat is publicOwnership?
Luka, Inc.Legal operator of the Replika app, per its legal notice and termsYes, the company that holds the business
Khosla VenturesLed the $6.5 million Series A.2 in November 2017Investor; stake not disclosed
Sherpa Capital, Phil Libin, Richard SocherJoined the same 2017 roundInvestors; stakes not disclosed
Eugenia KuydaCo-founder of Luka and creator of Replika, now an advisorAny remaining equity is not public
Dmytro KlochkoCEO and the company's named legal representativeAny equity is not public
WabiKuyda's separate startup, with its own investorsNo reported stake in Replika

We found no report of a sale, merger or change of control at Luka. A big technology company buying Replika would be a major news event and would normally show up in the company's legal pages. Neither has happened as far as the public record goes, so the working answer is that the original corporate structure still stands, with new management on top.

Who founded Replika and who invested?

Replika came out of Luka, a software company Kuyda co-founded through Y Combinator around 2012, according to Wikipedia, which cites Bloomberg and Stratechery for that history. Replika itself is the later product. It opened to the general public on November 1, 2017, a date the company gave in its own funding press release.

That same release is the best primary source on the money. Dated November 30, 2017, it announced a $6.5 million Series A.2 led by Khosla Ventures and joined by Sherpa Capital, Evernote co-founder Phil Libin and Richard Socher, then chief scientist at Salesforce. It put Replika's total funding at $11 million.

Later databases add a few names but barely move the total. Tracxn lists $11 million across four rounds, counts 7 institutional and 3 angel investors, names ACME and Ludlow Ventures among them, and shows the latest round as a September 2018 grant. GetLatka also shows $11 million. We found no announced equity round after 2018.

That number is the most striking fact in this story. Replika's homepage now counts more than 42 million users worldwide on roughly $11 million of publicly disclosed funding.

Who runs Replika now that Eugenia Kuyda has stepped down?

Dmytro Klochko runs it. MindSite News reported in February 2026 that Kuyda stepped down as CEO in early 2025 to found a new company, that Klochko has led Replika since 2025, and that Kuyda remains an advisor. News.com.au was already calling Klochko the CEO in June 2025, and the legal notice names him today.

Changing CEOs did not change who owns the company. A founder can leave the top job and keep shares, sell them, or hold a board seat, and none of those details have been made public here. So anyone who says Kuyda still owns Replika, or that she has fully exited, is guessing.

Is Wabi connected to Replika?

Only through its founder. Wabi is Kuyda's new company, and press coverage treats it as a separate business. TechCrunch reported a $20 million pre-seed in November 2025 from angels including Naval Ravikant and Garry Tan. Tech Funding News reported on October 30, 2026 that Wabi raised $55 million led by IVP at a $1.25 billion valuation, bringing its total to around $75 million.

This trips people up in search results, because Wabi's investors and valuation sometimes get mentioned alongside Replika. Wabi's roughly $75 million is not Replika's funding, and that $1.25 billion is not Replika's valuation. No Replika valuation has been published in anything we could read.

Why do sources disagree about who owns Replika?

Most of the pages ranking for this question are automated company profiles, and they lag behind events or merge different dates. The table below shows the conflicts we hit and the source we would trust for each one.

QuestionWhat you will seeBest answer
Who is the CEO?Tracxn still lists Kuyda and Peng Norbu as current CEOs; GetLatka lists KlochkoKlochko, per the company's own legal notice
When was it founded?About 2012 (Wikipedia, for Luka), 2015 (Tracxn), 2017 (GetLatka, for Replika)Luka is older; the Replika app went public in November 2017
How much has it raised?$11 million in most places, with some outliers$11 million, the figure in the company's 2017 release
How many users?Over 30 million, 35 million, 42 millionAll are company-sourced totals from different dates, not active users

The practical rule: for who runs a company and who is legally responsible, read its legal notice and terms first. A database profile is a lead to check, not an answer. That applies to any app you are thinking of promoting or partnering with.

How big is Replika, and does it make money?

Replika has not published its revenue or profits, so every figure below is a third-party estimate or a company claim.

  • Users: the Replika homepage showed 42,160,934 users worldwide on November 4, 2026. It showed the identical number on October 26, so treat it as a marketing figure rather than a live count. TechCrunch used 35 million in November 2025. None of these measure active or paying users.
  • Revenue: GetLatka shows its own estimate of $14 million for June 2024 and a Sensor Tower figure of about $4.8 million a year as of June 2026. The second covers app store in-app purchases only, so the two are not comparable and do not prove a decline.
  • Team: Tracxn counts 116 employees as of September 2026, and GetLatka shows a similar LinkedIn-based estimate of 115.
  • Pricing: the money comes from subscriptions and in-app gems. Our Replika pricing breakdown lists the App Store plans at $7.99 or $14.99 a month and $49.99 or $69.99 a year.

Whether Luka is profitable cannot be determined from public information. Anyone stating it as fact is working from an estimate.

Ownership matters most when a regulator comes calling, because the legal entity carries the penalty. Luka has faced two notable challenges.

Italy's 5 million euro privacy fine

Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, announced on May 19, 2025 that it had fined Luka Inc. 5 million euros. It said the company had failed to identify a legal basis for processing user data as of February 2, 2023, and had not implemented age verification. It also opened a separate investigation into how the model was trained. Against about $11 million of disclosed funding, that is a very large number. Kuyda told MindSite News the matter has been resolved; we could not find a public record of how it ended.

The FTC complaint

In January 2025 the Tech Justice Law Project, Young People's Alliance and Encode filed a complaint and petition asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Luka, alleging deceptive marketing and design that encourages emotional dependence. TIME covered the filing and said Replika did not respond to its requests for comment. A complaint is an allegation from outside groups, not a finding, and we found no announced FTC action against Luka.

Replika vs Character.AI vs Candy AI: who owns what?

Three of the best-known companion brands have three very different ownership stories, and the contrast is more useful than any one of them alone.

ReplikaCharacter.AICandy AI
Legal ownerLuka, Inc. (Delaware)Character Technologies, Inc.EverAI Limited (Malta)
Disclosed capitalAbout $11 million$150 million Series A at a $1 billion valuationNot published
Revenue modelSubscriptions and gemsAds and a c.ai+ subscriptionSubscriptions and tokens
StatusOperating, new CEO since 2025In Chapter 11, assets for saleOperating, private

The details are in our guides to who owns Character.AI and how Candy AI makes money. Size of funding clearly did not decide who survived.

What can AI companion operators learn from Replika's ownership?

1. Charge from early on and keep the cap table light

Replika has lasted about nine years since its public launch with a fraction of the capital Character.AI raised in one round. We cannot prove the causal link, since Luka's finances are private, but selling subscriptions instead of funding free usage leaves far less pressure to raise. Our AI companion app pricing tracker shows how the category charges today.

2. Budget for compliance like a fixed cost

A 5 million euro fine, tied to data handling and missing age checks, would end most small operators. Real age verification and a documented legal basis for data processing belong in the launch budget, not on a later to-do list. Our adult AI content rules guide covers what platforms require now.

3. Make your legal entity easy to find

Replika's legal notice answers the question in a few lines. If you run a companion site, name your legal entity and registration clearly in your terms. Payment partners, regulators and serious affiliates all look for it, and vagueness reads as risk.

4. Plan for the founder leaving

Kuyda could move on and raise far more for a new venture while Replika kept operating under a new CEO. A business that does not depend on one person is the one you can eventually hand off or sell, and it helps to document who owns the brand, domains, users and data from the first day.

Should you build an app like Replika or partner on one?

You do not need to raise venture money or own a model to enter this market, but you do need to decide what you want to own. Building from scratch gives you the most control and the full compliance burden, and our guide to building an app like Replika walks through what that involves. Note that Replika's terms ban pornographic content and it has been repositioning around wellbeing, so adult demand is a different product. Our Replika alternatives page shows where users look instead.

The other route is a done-for-you site. WhiteLabelFans builds, hosts and runs a branded adult AI companion site, handles payments and compliance, and pays a revenue share of up to 60% of total site revenue, which suits people who already have traffic or an audience. Compare the options on our white-label AI companion platform overview before you commit either way.

Frequently asked questions

Is Replika owned by Google, Microsoft or another big tech company?

No public record shows that. Replika's legal notice and terms name Luka, Inc., a private Delaware corporation in San Francisco, as the company behind the app. Its disclosed backers are venture firms and angel investors such as Khosla Ventures, Sherpa Capital, Phil Libin and Richard Socher. We found no report of an acquisition as of November 4, 2026.

Who is the CEO of Replika?

Dmytro Klochko is the CEO of Replika, and the company's legal notice names him as its representative. He took over from founder Eugenia Kuyda in 2025, after she stepped down to start a new company called Wabi. Some company databases still list Kuyda as CEO, which is out of date. MindSite News reports she remains an advisor.

Does Eugenia Kuyda still own Replika?

Nobody outside the company can say. Kuyda co-founded Luka and created Replika, and she stayed on as an advisor after leaving the CEO role in 2025, but Luka has never published its shareholder list. She may hold equity, yet no public source confirms how much. Her current focus is Wabi, a separate company with its own investors.

Is Replika a Russian company?

No. Replika is operated by Luka, Inc., which is registered in Delaware and lists a San Francisco address in its legal notice. The question likely comes from its founder's background, since Wikipedia describes Eugenia Kuyda as Russian-born. Where a founder was born does not determine where a company is incorporated or who owns it today.

Can you buy Replika stock?

Not on a public exchange, as far as we can find. Luka, Inc. is privately held, and we found no record of a stock listing. Tracxn classifies the company as Series A stage. Shares in private companies generally change hands only through private transactions, and Luka has not published its valuation or shareholder percentages.

How much money has Replika raised?

About $11 million in disclosed funding. The company's November 2017 press release announced a $6.5 million Series A.2 led by Khosla Ventures and put the total at $11 million. Tracxn and GetLatka show the same total, with Tracxn listing a 2018 grant as the most recent round. The $75 million figure you may see belongs to Wabi, not Replika.

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