Skylight, a startup taking on TikTok with a more open alternative, is launching its mobile app to the public on Tuesday after just 10 weeks of active development. The app, which is backed by Mark Cuban and others, is now one of many to build on top of the AT Protocol — the same technology that underpins the social network Bluesky and a growing number of other apps.
Developed by co-founders Tori White (CEO) and Reed Hermeyer (CTO), Skylight offers a short-form video app experience with many familiar features, including an in-app video editor; the ability to comment, like, and share videos; set up your own user profile; and follow others.
Because it’s also built on the AT Protocol (or “ATProto” for short), users will immediately be tapped into Bluesky’s network of over 33.8 million users. That means videos posted on Skylight can be seen and engaged with by users on Bluesky and other ATProto-based apps, like the more photo-centric app Flashes, for example.
The company is funded by a pre-seed round from Cuban, who said earlier this year that he wanted to fund a TikTok alternative built on the AT Protocol. Leslie Feinzaig’s Graham & Walker Venture Fund also invested.
White, who used to be a travel influencer and is now a self-taught software developer living in Seattle, says she and co-founder Hermeyer were inspired to create Skylight when they first heard that TikTok was getting banned in the U.S.
In preparation for the ban, which is currently on pause, White had backed up her TikTok videos. But she still worried about losing access to her community and comments. She and Hermeyer had already been playing around with ATProto and saw the potential.
“The first thing that interested us about ATProto was that Bluesky was not failing,” Hermeyer told TechCrunch at the ATmosphere Conference in Seattle in March. “We didn’t see the ‘fail whale,’” he said, a reference to the graphic that appeared in Twitter’s early days when the app was constantly crashing. “That made us feel comfortable about the underlying technology.”
Hermeyer and White soon realized this was an ideal time to build a new social app on the protocol that could be “ban-proof.”
Tapping into her influencer background, White began documenting Skylight’s development on TikTok, which helped bring exposure to the product and build a following of potentially interested users.
“We started with distribution,” White explained. “I actually made a video before we ever wrote a line of code for this … [so] everyone can follow our journey as we build,” she told TechCrunch at the conference. “We were like, oh my gosh, we are building this thing that we think is so cool, but no one cares yet. So we have to build a way to tell people about it so that they would care, because we know people need it,” she said.
Today, White’s @buildwithtori TikTok profile has nearly 50,000 followers, many of which turned into early testers.
Like Bluesky, Skylight supports video uploads of up to three minutes in length, a recent increase from the one-minute-long videos supported previously. But White sees Skylight becoming more than just a decentralized TikTok clone.
She hints that Skylight in the future will allow users to customize their feed, including by utilizing new gestures beyond swiping and scrolling.
Other features in the works include support for sounds, duets, stitching, bookmarks, and playlists.
The app is in beta on the Google Play Store and is now available publicly on Apple’s App Store after initial testing.
