Sometimes a seemingly good idea, a big raise from a big name VC, and a sea of well-connected angel investors aren’t enough.
Less than a year after launch, Yupp shuts down co-founders Pankaj Gupta and Gilad Mishne was announced on Tuesday.
Yupp offered an abundance AI model selection service. It allows consumers to test and compare results from an offering of 800 AI models for free, including state-of-the-art models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Yupp would return multiple responses from the direct request, including information or images, and users would offer feedback on which models worked best for them and why.
The idea was to generate anonymized data about what people actually need from AI, which would then pay model builders. Yupp said it registers 1.3 million users and collects millions of likes every month. It even had a leaderboard. The company said it also had some AI labs as customers.
But unfortunately, it “didn’t achieve a strong enough product-market fit” to survive, in part because AI models have improved by such leaps and bounds in recent months, the founders said.
While labs pay big money for feedback, the current model — pioneered by companies like Scale AI and Mercor — is to hire specialized experts, such as PhDs, and feed them into reinforcement learning.
Furthermore, Silicon Valley is already looking 10 miles down the road when AI is built and used by other AIs. Model makers may want some consumer feedback now, but they’re largely building for the day when agents, not people, rule the online world.
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“The landscape of AI modeling capabilities has changed dramatically in the last year alone and will continue to change rapidly,” wrote Gupta, CEO of Yupp. a post on X about plans to close. “The future is not just models but agent systems.”
Yupp raised a $33 million seed round in 2024 led by Chris Dixon of a16z crypto, a massive seed round for its time. In addition, Yupp collected checks from more than 45 angel and small investors, he said. This included figures such as Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp. and Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas.
Gupta said some of Yupp’s employees are joining a “well-known” AI company and others are looking for their next gig. Yupp did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
