Ukrainian “Reface” app came out on top in the AppStore, ahead of TikTok, Netflix
The founders explain the success of the app by the publication in famous magazines and the popularity of Reface (previously named “Doublicat”) among celebrities. The app from Ukrainian developers Reface took first place in the American App Store in the “Entertainment” category. This was announced by one of the developers Oles Petriv at his Facebook page.
App Store downloads exceeded 27 million.
Reface also came in second in the Free Apps category. It was ahead of Instagram, YouTube and Messenger. On Android the app is also having a success, with the Reface App ranking # 1 in the Google Play Entertainment category in the UK, Canada, Australia and 14 other countries. 90% of Reface App’s growth is organic and only 10% is from marketing.
Reface is an app that uses AI-powered deepfake technology to let users try on another face/form for size. Aka “face swap videos”, in its marketing parlance.
The startup has Ukrainian founders: Roman Mogylnyi, CEO and co-founder of RefaceAI, Oles Petriv, Yaroslav Boiko, Dima Shvets, Denis Dmitrenko, Ivan Altsybieiev and Kyle Sygyda, but the business is incorporated in the US. The Ukrainian team behind the app has been honing their deep tech chops for years — starting working together back in 2011 straight out of university and going on to set up a machine learning dev shop in 2013.
The startup staff also grew by 30%. Now more than 50 people work in the Kyiv office. RefaceAI continues to strengthen the technical team.
In our dreams and in our vision we see the app as a personalization platform where people will be able to live different lives during their one lifetime. So everyone can be anyone. What’s the overall problem right now? People are scrolling content, not looking deep into it. And when I see people just using our app they always try to look inside — to look deeply into the picture. And that’s what really inspires us. So we understand that we can take the way people are browsing and the way they are consuming content to the next level.
Roman Mogylnyi
In addition to Reface, there are other viral applications in the startup portfolio. For example, Reflect allows you to replace faces in photos.
- RefaceAI startup was founded in 2011. It studied machine learning, but then switched to artificial intelligence.
- Reface was released in early 2020. In the first month, it was downloaded 100,000 times.
- In April 2020, developers were able to attract large investments. Adventures Lab, one of the minority investors, has invested between $ 300,000 and $ 500,000 in the start-up.
