Mark Cuban backs Seattle startup developing TikTok competitor

With the future of TikTok up in the air, two engineers from Seattle just landed funding from Mark Cuban for their short-form video app that differentiates itself with unique back-end technology.

Skylight Social announced Tuesday that it raised cash from the Shark Tank legend, as well as Seattle-based firm Graham & Walker. TechCrunch first reported on the funding.

The company just got off the ground and is led by Victoria White and Reed Harmeyer. Its app (iOS; Android) looks and feels similar to TikTok. But one important difference is that it’s built on the Authenticated Transfer (AT) Protocol.

The AT Protocol lets users own their data, including their social graph, and move it across different apps. Bluesky, the popular X competitor, is built on the AT Protocol.

“We believe in giving users true ownership of their content and social connections,” Skylight says on its site. “By building on AT Protocol, we ensure that your videos, followers, and engagement aren’t locked into our platform. You’re free to take everything with you if you ever choose to use another AT Protocol-based service.”

Skylight is also unique in that it’s registered as a Public Benefit Corporation and is legally committed to creating positive social impact.

Skylight attended the recent ATmosphere Conference in Seattle, where Bluesky CEO Jay Graber and other leaders from the AT Protocol movement gathered to discuss the burgeoning technology.

Seattle tech veteran Marcelo Calbucci was at the conference and wrote a post on GeekWire about the potential impact from AT Protocol for social apps and the internet more broadly.

“It’s wrong to think of Skylight as a TikTok clone,” Calbucci wrote. “The experience might feel very similar, but users will be able to pack their data and move to another similar service when they want to and continue to benefit from the audience they’ve built.”

Skylight is gaining momentum as TikTok faces a U.S. ban this week.

“We all deserve social media platforms that give us control over our content, audience, and relationships, that won’t just flip the algorithm because of the founder’s politics, or get banned, or just arbitrarily change the rules and destroy what we love about them,” Leslie Feinzaig, founder at Graham & Walker, wrote on LinkedIn.

White and Harmeyer previously led Terris, a Seattle company that describes itself as an “AI whiteboard to help you from idea to prototype” and helps users generate code for React apps.

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