Opal raises $10M and ships a new attention OS, says 1M daily users
The focus app says it has 1M daily users and 10M installs; the new Opal adds Opal Score and Autofocus as Schlenker frames attention as the AI era’s bottleneck.
By Ryan Merket · Published
Why it matters
As AI access commoditizes, attention management becomes a competitive edge for operators and teams. If Opal’s engagement numbers hold, behavioral UX that actively protects focus could become a default layer in consumer and workplace stacks.
Kenneth Schlenker (@kschlenker) announced in a thread on X that Opal has raised $10 million and is rolling out a "new Opal" it bills as an operating system for attention. Schlenker said Opal now counts 1 million people using it every day.
https://x.com/kschlenker/status/2059301066915631339
"Personal AGI is coming... The bottleneck won't be access to intelligence. It will be attention," Schlenker wrote on X. His post frames the update around helping users keep focus amid increasingly persuasive software.
The release introduces Opal Score, a daily reading on Focus, Sleep, and Rest, positioned as a "weather report for your mind," and Autofocus, which nudges or intervenes contextually (a prompt before doomscrolling, a one-tap focus session, a block before bed) to reduce setup and increase adherence. Opal says 10 million people have installed the app and users have "given back" more than 300 million hours of attention.
Schlenker is Opal's founder and CEO. Before Opal, he ran Stellar Base, a NYC-and-Paris venture studio and product consultancy; led Bird's expansion in France as general manager, building a 190-person team and a profitable 30 million euros a year business in 15 months; and served as CMO at artnet following the acquisition of ArtList. He is also an angel investor at Jour. Opal previously raised a $5 million seed.
https://x.com/treeba/status/2059329299975483852
Schlenker added that Opal is used by professionals, parents, students, and entire schools or families, and positioned the product as broadly applicable. The app is available on iPhone and Android at opalapp.com.
He thanked early and new backers including Adjacent and Speedinvest, naming partners Nico Wittenborn (@ncsh), Paul Michaux (@pmchx), and Markus Lang (@markus0lang), as well as Night Capital's Kevin Carter (@carterkev) and angel Tim Kendall (@tkendall). Funding details beyond the $10 million amount were not disclosed in the thread.