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Botnik Studios
Techstars '17Seattle, US · 4 employees on LinkedIn · 1 known investors
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Botnik is a community platform where writers, artists, and developers collaborate with machine learning tools to create content and experiments. Botnik Studios is the entertainment arm that showcases creative works generated through human-machine collaboration.
Also known as Botnik
Investors · 1
How we know: the Techstars portfolio · open dataset · Top 3000 Accelerator Startups (no YC) 2026-08 · Not right? Tell us
Company profile
researched Sep 2026Botnik is a community of writers, artists and developers who use machine learning tools to create written work, with Botnik Studios serving as the entertainment group that exhibits output from that community. Its central tool is Voicebox, a web-based predictive text keyboard analogous to a smartphone's predictive keyboard: it suggests words drawn from a chosen source corpus, and users can either select from preloaded 'voices' (pancake recipes, Jerry Seinfeld standup, Harry Potter narration, the Communist Manifesto, Emily Dickinson, Star Trek stage directions, Yelp reviews and others) or upload their own training material. The resulting text tends to preserve the structure and tone of the source while producing incongruous content, an effect the group uses for comedy.
Beyond the tool itself, Botnik runs the Botnik Gallery, a community space for creating, sharing and running text experiments; a newsletter carrying highlights and exclusive content; and Botnik Live!, in-person showcases staged in various cities. Community participation is organized through online channels including a Slack channel and a private group, with collaborative 'writing jams' in which members contribute lines generated with custom keyboards. Reported community size is roughly 200 contributors — including engineers, comedy writers and musicians — distinct from a small core company team.
The studio's stated approach is augmentation rather than automation: a human premise, machine-generated suggestions, and human curation. Published projects have included predictive-text parodies of Scrubs, Bachelorette dialogue and product reviews, as well as the Harry Potter chapter 'Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash.'
Founding story
Jamie Brew, a writer for The Onion and lead writer at ClickHole, built a predictive text keyboard in 2016 inspired by the iPhone's predictive keyboard, having begun experimenting with predictive text in 2015. He was introduced to Bob Mankoff — humor editor at Esquire and former cartoon editor of The New Yorker — through Mankoff's assistant at The New Yorker, and the two formed the company in October 2016.
Business model
Botnik Studios operates an open, community-driven model: a free web tool (Voicebox) and community spaces draw contributors whose collaboratively curated output is published by the Studios arm as entertainment content, supplemented by live showcase events and a newsletter. Writers reportedly retain control of and proceeds from their contributions.
Traction
Wikipedia and secondary coverage report a community of around 200 contributors and a core team of four. Widely shared outputs include the Harry Potter chapter parody, ranked number four in The Guardian's ten best internet moments of 2017, and a Scrubs monologue read by Zach Braff in December 2017.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Botnik is an early and widely covered example of AI-assisted comedy writing, noted in outlets including The Guardian, Wired, The Verge, BBC News and The Washington Post, and selected into the first Amazon/Techstars Alexa Accelerator cohort alongside eight other startups.
The approach centers on human curation of machine suggestions — described by its founder as a sandwich of human premise, machine chaos and human editing — rather than fully automated text generation, combined with an open community of roughly 200 contributors and published entertainment output rather than a purely developer-facing tool.
Technology
The core technology is a predictive text engine that builds custom 'keyboards' by processing genre-specific text corpora, then offers word suggestions based on what is likely to follow the words already entered. Users can select preloaded training data or upload their own. The tool is delivered as a web app (Voicebox); the design philosophy emphasizes transparent, accessible instruments for human-led writing rather than fully automated generation.
Go-to-market
Distribution is through the botnik.org website, where visitors can use Voicebox immediately with preloaded voices; a newsletter, a community gallery, Slack and a private group for contributors; and Botnik Live! physical showcases. Reach has been amplified by viral published output and coverage in general-interest and technology media.
Writers, artists, developers, comedy writers and other creative contributors who want to experiment with predictive-text tools, plus audiences for the resulting comedy content.
Geography
Jamie Brew and Elle O'Brien are based in Seattle, Washington; Bob Mankoff works in New York with creative director Joseph Parker. Live showcases are staged in various cities.
History
The company was formed in October 2016 by Jamie Brew and Bob Mankoff and the website launched the same year. Lead scientist Elle O'Brien joined in August 2017. In July 2017 Botnik took part in the Amazon/Techstars Alexa Accelerator, presenting at the program's first Demo Night in Seattle in October 2017. Public attention grew in December 2017 when actor Zach Braff recorded himself reading a Scrubs-style monologue produced with Botnik's system, and the group's Harry Potter parody chapter was ranked fourth in The Guardian's list of ten best internet moments of 2017. From 2018 Botnik described itself as an open community, with users able to use the predictive keyboard and share results on the site.
Compiled by commissioned research from 5 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
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Companies working in the same space as Botnik Studios.
Timeline · 6
launches, deals, and filingsBotnik's 'Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash' was ranked number four in The Guardian's list of ten genuinely great things the internet gave us in 2017.
Actor Zach Braff shared a recording of himself reading a Scrubs-style monologue written with the Botnik system, broadening the group's public visibility.
Botnik Studios, described as making digital tools for self-expression, was one of nine early-stage startups in the first Amazon/Techstars Alexa Accelerator cohort, which culminated in a Demo Night at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle after a 13-week program.
Botnik was joined by lead scientist Elle O'Brien in August 2017.
Botnik was accepted into the Amazon/Techstars Alexa Accelerator Program as a startup whose technology could realistically improve Amazon's Alexa smart speaker assistant.
Writer Jamie Brew (The Onion, ClickHole) and former New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff formed the company in October 2016; the Botnik Studios website launched in 2016.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 5
primary sources listed
- Botnik Studiosbotnik.org · web
5 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Botnik Studios do?
- Botnik Studios is a Seattle-based entertainment group and community using predictive-text tools to create human-machine comedy.
- Who are Botnik Studios's investors?
- Botnik Studios's investors include Techstars.
- Where is Botnik Studios headquartered?
- Botnik Studios is headquartered in Seattle, US.