/Companies

Couple

DefunctYC W12

San Francisco, US · 2 employees · 16 known investors

Find your way into Couple

Sign up to see every warm intro you have to Couple

  • Paths you didn't know you had: your email and LinkedIn already hold routes to the Couple team. We find them for you
  • 2nd- and 3rd-degree connections: the friend-of-a-friend routes that take hours to manually find through your inbox or LinkedIn
  • Answers now, not in days: momentum is everything in a raise. Skip asking around whether someone knows someone

Days of research, done the moment you sign in, with every route ranked by how warm it is.

Couple.me is an AI-powered chat application that lets users create and interact with customizable virtual AI characters, including AI girlfriends and boyfriends, for entertainment and companionship. The platform uses machine learning to generate human-like conversations and personalized images based on user preferences.

Also known as Tenthbit Inc. · Pair · Couple.me · FAB AI LTD

AI & Machine LearningConsumerSocialMessagingDatingUnited States of AmericaAmerica / Canada

Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (W12)

OKOleg Kostour
Oleg KostourFounder2012–2017Oleg Kostour is a University of Waterloo graduate who founded Pair, a messaging application that reached millions of installs and top rankings in iOS app charts. He has held growth leadership roles at Dropbox and Life360, scaling the latter from millions to tens of millions of monthly active users ahead of their public listing.
AKAnton Krutiansky
Anton KrutianskyFounderformerAnton Krutiansky is a University of Waterloo graduate and former tech lead at Dropbox, where he worked on growth, mobile, and experimentation infrastructure. He previously co-founded Pair, a Y Combinator-backed company that was acquired by Dropbox.
MPMichael Petrov
Michael PetrovFounder2012–2014Michael Petrov previously worked as an iOS engineer at Dropbox following an acquisition, and later served as tech lead on the GPT-3 API and Applied AI team at OpenAI. He is founder of Couple, a messaging application for couples.
ARAswinkumar Rajendiran
Aswinkumar RajendiranFounderformerAswinkumar Rajendiran is the founder and CEO of Maple billing software. He previously worked as an early employee at Rippling and participated in Y Combinator's Winter 2012 cohort with Couple.
JMJamie Murai
Jamie MuraiFounderformer

Investors · 16

Founder CollectivereportedCambridge

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Lerer HippeaureportedNew York · $500K – $2M

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Sam Altmanreported

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Slow VenturesreportedSan Francisco · $50K – $1M

How we know: the VCSheet dataset · Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Sound VenturesreportedSanta Monica

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Start Capitalreported

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

SV AngelreportedSan Francisco · $150K – $20M

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Tencent HoldingsreportedShenzhen

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Tuesday CapitalreportedSan Francisco

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Vayner Fundreported

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

ZIPreportedNew York

How we know: funding news · Not right? Tell us

Company profile

researched Aug 2026

Couple.me is a consumer web application that lets users create and converse with AI-generated companion characters, offered in girlfriend, boyfriend and anime variants. Users name a character, choose a realistic or anime style, and customize appearance, voice and personality traits before starting a chat; multiple characters can be created and maintained by the same user. The product presents itself as an entertainment and companionship experience rather than a substitute for human relationships or professional mental-health support.

Alongside text conversation, the service includes image generation, with characters able to produce or send pictures such as custom selfies according to user preferences, and additional surfaces for browsing pre-made characters and for adult-oriented image and video chat features. The site states that conversations are private and secured while advising users not to share sensitive personal data such as passwords, financial information or government identification.

Business model

Couple.me is a direct-to-consumer subscription product. The site advertises free features and a free trial alongside a paid Premium tier promoted at a discount, and it operates an affiliate program as an additional distribution channel.

Consumer subscription and payment for premium features; some functionality is available free while other options require a subscription or payment.

▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography

Market position

Couple.me competes in the consumer AI companion and AI girlfriend application category, positioning on character customization, persistent memory of user preferences, and combined chat plus image generation.

Technology

The application uses artificial intelligence to generate human-like conversational responses that adapt to user preferences and learn from prior interactions, retaining stated preferences across conversations. It also incorporates generative image capability for character pictures and selfies.

Go-to-market

Self-serve web signup with a free tier and free trial, a promoted Premium upgrade, an affiliate program, and content marketing through articles and feature-specific landing pages (AI girlfriend, AI boyfriend, image and video chat).

Individual consumers seeking virtual romantic companionship, flirtatious or casual conversation, and AI-generated character imagery.

Geography

Operated in English with contact details listed for FAB AI LTD at 37 Panton Street, Piccadilly Circus, London SW1Y 4EA, United Kingdom, plus a US telephone contact number.

Compiled by commissioned research from 1 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.

Founder mafia

2 people who came through Couple went on to found or lead other companies.

Related companies · 4

Companies working in the same space as Couple.

Legal entities · 1

corporate structure
Tenthbit Inc.

▸Research sources · 1

primary sources listed

1 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.

Frequently asked questions

What does Couple do?
Couple.me is an AI companion chat app for creating customizable virtual girlfriend, boyfriend and anime characters.
Who founded Couple?
Couple was founded by Oleg Kostour, Anton Krutiansky, Michael Petrov, Aswinkumar Rajendiran, Jamie Murai.
Who are Couple's investors?
Couple's investors include Y Combinator, Betaworks Ventures Management, Llc, Founder Collective, Initialized Capital, Lerer Hippeau, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Sam Altman, Seedcamp and 8 more.
Where is Couple headquartered?
Couple is headquartered in San Francisco, US.