fai nur

ceo and cofounder @thestatusai. also yc w22, snap, and harvard law.

[fai nur @faionur]

Status has raised $17M in seed and Series A funding led by @AbstractVC, @generalcatalyst and @usv to let anyone step inside their favorite stories, become famous, and live a million different lives.

We quietly launched Status last year and grew to over 1 million users in 19 days - making us the fastest growing AI app since ChatGPT.

But we hit a (predictable) snag - the app was incredibly expensive to run. How do you serve millions of users without degrading the product with a cheap LLM?

So the team locked in: we rebuilt the whole experience, and our technical bets paid off. Our users now spend 35 minutes on average to (90 minutes each day for power users!), and millions of characters and worlds have been created. All by our users.

The next frontier of entertainment is mobile-first and deeply personal. Traditional mobile games take years to build and rarely stick. TV shows are fleeting in the age of streaming. Status is different. It is not a game you finish, it is a world you can live in.

Status is a new category entirely: Immersive Social Entertainment, and we believe strongly that it is the next great entertainment paradigm. We’ve 10x’d to millions in annual revenue in Q1 2026, we're just getting started.

On Status, you can be anyone.

[fai nur @faionur]

@_dianakris @downloadlos can you pls white label this for everyone so we can all have our own little trackers

[USV @usv]

https://t.co/XO8Jdcm40d

[eliza @elizalian]

hosting an exclusive panel for those building in consumer ai or are looking to join the best consumer ai teams. come out. we want to meet you!

@NateTepper TrueShort ($2.4M annualized revenue)
@faionur Status (1M downloads 19 days)
@rjvir NGL (300M downloads)

moderated by @kirbyman01 !!

[Nate Tepper @NateTepper]

Speaking on the Consumer AI Panel at NY Tech Week with some of the best consumer founders

Raj - NGL (300M downloads)
Fai - Status (1M downloads 19 days)
Eliza - Corner (Apple App of the Day)

With the one and only Bryan Kim at a16z

RSVP 👇

[fai nur @faionur]

join us next week in NYC! 😎

[Nate Tepper @NateTepper]

Speaking on the Consumer AI Panel at NY Tech Week with some of the best consumer founders

Raj - NGL (300M downloads)
Fai - Status (1M downloads 19 days)
Eliza - Corner (Apple App of the Day)

With the one and only Bryan Kim at a16z

RSVP 👇

[fai nur @faionur]

@bonatsos @DWeisburd one of the best!

[Katie @katiekirsch]

just posted a new list of open roles / startups hiring right now - curated by our team at @a16z!

this week featuring @maclennanm, @oskarblock, @XDeGracia, @jm_mingot, @faionur, @thaiscbranco_, @bridgitmendler, @Substack, @Kalshi, @Saronic, @RilletHQ, @figma, @AstroMechanica, & many more

[fai nur @faionur]

kenneth and the opal team understood the opportunity in digital health before anyone else and it’s been amazing to see them scale these past few years!! (👀 my surprise cameo)

[Kenneth Schlenker @kschlenker]

Today we're announcing the new Opal to build the operating system for attention.

1 million people already use Opal every single day. We raised $10M.

Personal AGI is coming.  The bottleneck won't be access to intelligence.

It will be attention.

[fai nur @faionur]

@Will_McKelvey you know ball

[fai nur @faionur]

@metapreston this is sick

[fai nur @faionur]

@kitakinluyi zal is a legend

[fai nur @faionur]

No AI models or data centers were used in the making of this launch video. We wanted to make something with creatives that remind you the feeling of falling in rabbit holes with your favorite stories and worlds. Just like you can on Status. 

Hand drawn, real actors, built with 2D + 3D models frame-by-frame in Blender. No AI. Real art.

dir. by ZAL and Simon Boyd
music by Trevor Will

[fai nur @faionur]

Status has raised $17M in seed and Series A funding led by @AbstractVC, @generalcatalyst and @usv to let anyone step inside their favorite stories, become famous, and live a million different lives.

We quietly launched Status last year and grew to over 1 million users in 19 days - making us the fastest growing AI app since ChatGPT.

But we hit a (predictable) snag - the app was incredibly expensive to run. How do you serve millions of users without degrading the product with a cheap LLM?

So the team locked in: we rebuilt the whole experience, and our technical bets paid off. Our users now spend 35 minutes on average to (90 minutes each day for power users!), and millions of characters and worlds have been created. All by our users.

The next frontier of entertainment is mobile-first and deeply personal. Traditional mobile games take years to build and rarely stick. TV shows are fleeting in the age of streaming. Status is different. It is not a game you finish, it is a world you can live in.

Status is a new category entirely: Immersive Social Entertainment, and we believe strongly that it is the next great entertainment paradigm. We’ve 10x’d to millions in annual revenue in Q1 2026, we're just getting started.

On Status, you can be anyone.

[fai nur @faionur]

@_kentw @etanddd it gives us…status

[fai nur @faionur]

@nikunj @AbstractVC @generalcatalyst @usv thank you again nikunj for coming over to our demo day last week! it means a lot!

[fai nur @faionur]

Status has raised $17M in seed and Series A funding led by @AbstractVC, @generalcatalyst and @usv to let anyone step inside their favorite stories, become famous, and live a million different lives.

We quietly launched Status last year and grew to over 1 million users in 19 days - making us the fastest growing AI app since ChatGPT.

But we hit a (predictable) snag - the app was incredibly expensive to run. How do you serve millions of users without degrading the product with a cheap LLM?

So the team locked in: we rebuilt the whole experience, and our technical bets paid off. Our users now spend 35 minutes on average to (90 minutes each day for power users!), and millions of characters and worlds have been created. All by our users.

The next frontier of entertainment is mobile-first and deeply personal. Traditional mobile games take years to build and rarely stick. TV shows are fleeting in the age of streaming. Status is different. It is not a game you finish, it is a world you can live in.

Status is a new category entirely: Immersive Social Entertainment, and we believe strongly that it is the next great entertainment paradigm. We’ve 10x’d to millions in annual revenue in Q1 2026, we're just getting started.

On Status, you can be anyone.

[fai nur @faionur]

@inetimiomu it was an intentional choice! we didn’t want a typical demo launch video and wanted something more creative and dreamy and fun

[fai nur @faionur]

@einsteindoclip @AbstractVC @generalcatalyst @usv it elevates the video so much!

[fai nur @faionur]

@holyn my favorite part of the vid

[fai nur @faionur]

@einsteindoclip @AbstractVC @generalcatalyst @usv we were originally gonna go with royalty free music and then we got an intro to Trevor who composed the track and it was the best decision we ever made

[holyn @holyn]

@faionur this entire sequence being hand drawn over pink pantheress-esq music is insane and i’ll never get over it

[fai nur @faionur]

@zehranaqvi @holyn we keepin it real

[fai nur @faionur]

@juliazniv creatives are the best of us!