Immortality startup Eternos nabs $10.3M, pivots to personal AI that sounds like you

In 2023, after nearly three decades as CEO of the company he founded, Robert LoCascio stepped down as CEO of LivePerson, the public company that pioneered web chat in 1997.

Advances in generative AI inspired his next project, which he calls “the highest bar” for the technology: replicating people with their life stories and personalities. In 2024, he founded Eternos, a legacy service that allows people to preserve their voices and stories for loved ones after they pass away. Now it has a new name and a changed mission.

The startup gained significantly media attention after the first client, terminally ill Michael Bommer, revealed how he worked with Eternos to create a digital replica of himself after talking to Eternos for 25 hours about his life, interests and worldview.

LoCascio planned to build an existing business, but what surprised him was that most people considering using Eternos did not prepare for death.

Eternos developed the Human Life Model (HLM) – a framework that uses only an individual’s data, rather than generic LLM data, to capture their unique values, life story and decision-making characteristics. LoCascio saw an opportunity to use this technology to help individuals create personal AIs for professional and personal use.

The company announced Tuesday that it has rebranded as Uare.ai and raised $10.3 million in seed funding led by Mayfield and Boldstart Ventures.

“I started to realize that the big models are using our data sets and are getting smarter because of us,” LoCascio told TechCrunch. “We don’t have to go down that path. You own the model and you can share it and monetize it.”

Uare.ai’s vision is to be a scaling tool for makers and professionals. Because the personal AI models incorporate the full expertise of the individual, a digital replica can be deployed to generate content, handle customer interactions and even execute projects.

Once Uare.ai’s platform launches later this year, individuals can begin training their HLMs by responding to Uare.ai questions about their lives using text, voice and even video.

“The first part is getting a human life story. Where are you from? Tell me a story about your childhood. What’s a crossroads in your life when you were younger?” said LoCascio.

Uare.ai then asks the person to provide additional facts about their life, including information about their occupation. “We combine the facts with this human life story, and that gives us your model,” he said.

Unlike Character.ai and other chatbots, Uare.ai’s model won’t turn to generic LLMs to fill in the gaps about anything not in HLM. “Our AIs will say, I don’t know if they can’t answer the question,” LoCascio said.

Uare.ai plans to generate revenue through subscription fees or take a cut of the revenue generated by customers who generate revenue from their digital twins.

Another startup developing personal AIs is backed by Sequoia Delphiwhich has attracted people with large followings, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, and allows others to interact with his replicated knowledge via voice or text.

Navin Chaddha, managing partner at Mayfield, believes Uare.ai stands out from the competition because it focuses on individual professionals such as CPAs. Moreover, LoCascio, a highly successful entrepreneur, is at the helm, he told TechCrunch.