Midjourney has acquired the social astrology app Co-Star, and Co-Star's roughly two-dozen-person team has joined the artificial-intelligence company. TechCrunch reported about 4.3 million monthly active users and said the transaction terms were not disclosed. [2]
The purchase follows the paper's July 24 account of Alphabet's $205 billion capital plan, which treated announced spending as intent rather than completed capacity, use, revenue or return. Midjourney has completed a different strategic commitment. It still owes the operating receipts.
Co-Star brings a consumer product, an audience estimate and workers who have already built an app. It uses both artificial intelligence and human writers to produce horoscopes, compatibility assessments and advice. Midjourney, by contrast, is still closely associated with the Discord interface through which users generate images and video and did not have a standalone consumer app in TechCrunch's account. [2]
That contrast explains why the team may matter more than the astrology. Mashable presents the combination as a surprising purchase and says founder Banu Guler will become Midjourney's chief design officer. It also carries Midjourney's assurance that Guler retains control of Co-Star. [1] An appointment and an assurance are governance statements, not a complete transaction or product architecture.
The official X post frames the companies around imagination and says the Co-Star app will continue under Guler's control. Mashable's X post sells the surprise. Those are the only two authorized platform entries for this article. Neither supplies a purchase price, financing terms, privacy agreement, employee contract or integration result.
The missing data question is especially consequential because Co-Star's service begins with personal birth information and social connections. Nothing in the source stack establishes that user records transferred to Midjourney, that they will train a model or that existing permissions changed. It would be equally careless to promise a sealed boundary or to announce a privacy breach without the governing documents.
Labor has its own unfinished ledger. TechCrunch says about two dozen employees joined Midjourney, but the record does not identify each transferred role, retention terms or the status of Co-Star's human writers. [2] A team count is not a compensation account, and a chief design title does not settle who controls editorial work, data policy or product decisions.
Nor does an audience estimate become adoption for a future Midjourney app. Monthly active users are reported rather than audited here. The source stack gives no overlap with Midjourney's users, retention after the acquisition, revenue contribution, app roadmap or delivered integration.
The divergence is therefore useful but incomplete. Official X offers a statement of shared purpose and continuity. Outlet coverage offers surprise and strategic speculation. The business case will be visible in less romantic records: consideration, liabilities, data terms, worker retention, product release, audience behavior, revenue and return.
Midjourney bought a company and hired a consumer team. That is a completed deal stage with a plausible strategic rationale. It is not yet proof that astrology users wanted an AI-lab owner, that their data moved, that workers benefited or that Midjourney learned how to build a successful standalone consumer app.
-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco