Summary:
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The AI lab Midjourney acquires astrology app Co-Star, known for its real-time star charts and blunt notifications.
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Financial terms of the acquisition remain undisclosed, with Co-Star boasting 4.3 million monthly active users and a cultural impact.
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Co-Star’s team will join Midjourney, with founder Banu Guler maintaining control as part of the company’s broader expansion.
The astrology app that spent years telling millions of users to “stop texting your ex” now belongs to an AI lab. Midjourney, the company best known for its generative AI image and video tools, has acquired Co-Star, the deal was first reported by Bloomberg on Thursday.
The acquisition quietly closed this spring, and neither company disclosed financial terms.
Co-Star, which is free with some paid features, has about 4.3 million monthly active users, according to Sensor Tower data. That number undersells its cultural footprint. Since launching in 2017, the app became a fixture of Gen Z and millennial social life, less because of its birth charts and more because of its voice.
Co-Star built its brand on what it calls “biting truth,” using NASA data to chart the stars in real time, then pairing human astrologers with AI to write daily horoscopes and the famously blunt push notifications that get screenshotted and shared far beyond the app itself. Comparing charts with friends, crushes and coworkers became the whole point: astrology as a social network.
As part of the deal, Co-Star’s team of roughly two dozen employees is joining Midjourney. Founder Banu Guler is staying on, and according to Midjourney CEO David Holz, the app is not getting absorbed or overhauled.
In a company blog post, Holz wrote that Co-Star “will remain entirely under Banu’s control and direction.”
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The more interesting question is what Midjourney wants with an astrology app in the first place. The answer seems to be everything.
The acquisition is part of a broader expansion Midjourney teased last month, which includes building its first standalone image-generation app. Midjourney has operated almost entirely through Discord since its start, and Co-Star’s team knows how to build a consumer app people open every day.
Holz has also launched Midjourney Medical and says the company plans to announce roughly half a dozen similarly ambitious projects over the next six months.
