Flavrs, an iOS application designed for food enthusiasts, is set to introduce exciting features and AI-powered recommendations through a tailored integration with OpenAI. The app offers a user-friendly interface akin to TikTok, showcasing videos from prominent chefs and content creators. Users can purchase the ingredients for dishes they fancy without leaving the app, thanks to its integration with Instacart.
Founded by Alejandro Oropeza, former global head of creator marketing at YouTube, and François Chu, a former Google engineer, Flavrs was launched in September 2022. The startup has secured $7 million in seed funding from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Wellington Access Ventures, and renowned chefs.
With these enhancements, Flavrs is evolving from a mere recipe discovery and shopping app into a comprehensive platform for discovering and ordering food. If users encounter a video from a restaurant and wish to place a takeout order, Flavrs will seamlessly direct them to Uber Eats and other delivery providers to fulfill their orders.
Oropeza expressed the app’s ambition, stating, “Imagine watching the best food videos and being able to shop for everything you see — ingredients, takeout, all in one place, even buying your favorite chef-approved cookware, knives, and more.”
Regarding the AI-powered recommendation systems, Flavrs has incorporated a custom integration with OpenAI. This innovation enables video content from app creators to be tailored to users based on more than 30 food categories, including cuisine, cooking techniques, dietary restrictions, and more. Creators can upload their videos and plain text recipes, and through Flavrs’ proprietary integration with OpenAI, these plain-text recipes are transformed into ‘smart’ videos that are shoppable and comprehensible to the app’s systems.
Oropeza highlighted that this feature simplifies creators’ lives by automating the process of tagging and filtering their content. The integration converts plain text into personalized and engaging content that aligns with each viewer’s preferences.
Since emerging from stealth mode last year, Flavrs has experienced significant growth, with an 80-fold increase in its user base and an 8-fold increase in its community of creators over the past three months.
Looking ahead, Oropeza envisions Flavrs as a platform connecting high-quality food content with real-life experiences and commerce, ultimately aiming to “connect the world through food.” The goal is to become the leading food content and commerce experience for the 500 million+ food enthusiasts worldwide, fostering a mutually beneficial ecosystem for chefs, food content creators, and local restaurants to engage with highly dedicated audiences.
