After the medical scanner, Midjourney takes on social astrology

Midjourney acquires Co-Star to integrate its design teams. The stakes of this transaction for the development of a standalone mobile application.

Midjourney has made its first acquisition by buying Co-Star, a New York-based social astrology app. Its founder, Banu Guler, becomes Midjourney’s head of design, where she is building a cross-functional team bringing together design, product, and front-end development to support all of the company's projects. The deal, finalized in the spring and kept confidential until now, was for an undisclosed amount.

Launched in 2017, Co-Star generates a birth chart based on the date, time, and place of birth, then uses it to produce daily horoscopes and compatibility readings between friends, written by a mix of AI and human writers. The free app, which includes some paid options, has about 4.3 million monthly active users according to data from Sensor Tower. Its roughly 20 employees are joining Midjourney, and the app will continue to exist under Guler’s leadership.

The logic makes sense in light of an anomaly. Midjourney has never had a standalone app, as its reputation was built on a Discord server. According to Bloomberg, the company is now developing one dedicated to image generation, and through Co-Star, is acquiring a team highly experienced in consumer products. The acquisition extends a diversification already underway, following the launch of a healthcare division and a spa project equipped with an ultrasound scanner.

David Holz says he met Banu Guler just over five years ago, while he was thinking about how people reflect and make decisions, both in the present and over millennia, and has spoken with her for several hours a week since. Both executives say they share the same belief in computing tools capable of revealing to people what they want to say and feel even before they know how to put it into words.