Reface Secures $18M Revenue-Share Deal for User Acquisition

KYIV, Ukraine — 26 December 2025

Kyiv-based Reface, an AI-powered consumer app studio, has secured $18 million from Singapore-based PvX Partners to finance user acquisition across its portfolio of mobile applications, according to the company. The funding is structured to support marketing and growth without issuing new equity.

Founded in 2018 by Kyrylo Syhyda, Oles Petriv, Ivan Altsybieiev, Roman Mohylny, Yaroslav Boiko, Dmytro Shvets, Denys Dmytrenko, Reface develops AI-native consumer apps spanning content creation, entertainment and wellbeing. Its products include tools for face swapping in videos and photos, image animation, AI-generated portraits and visual style transfer, distributed globally through mobile app stores.

The company’s flagship Reface app enables users to replace faces in short-form video and photo content and generate AI-based portraits from selfies. The app gained widespread attention after a face-swap post bearing its watermark was shared by Elon Musk, according to published reports. Other products include Revive, which animates images, and Restyle, which changes the visual style of images and videos.

According to the company, Reface’s apps have collectively surpassed 300 million downloads worldwide. Reface is led by co-CEOs Anton Volovyk and Ivan Alts and operates with its core team based in Ukraine.

Unlike traditional venture capital, the $18 million facility is earmarked exclusively for user acquisition. PvX Partners co-invests directly into sales and marketing budgets and receives a share of revenue generated by newly acquired users, capped at a predefined return. The capital does not enter Reface’s balance sheet as operating cash and does not dilute existing shareholders.

For Reface, the structure allows the company to scale marketing spend without selling additional equity or increasing pressure on its core operating budget. For investors, the model offers a shorter return horizon, typically two to three years, compared with waiting for an acquisition or public listing. Customers are more likely to see increased distribution and product reach than changes to pricing or ownership.

The model has gained traction among consumer app companies with established product-market fit, particularly as subscription-based businesses face longer payback periods on customer acquisition. Grammarly has publicly described raising $1 billion from General Catalyst using a similar structure, and General Catalyst is also a partner and investor in PvX Partners, according to published reports.

Reface previously raised $6.5 million in equity funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz. The PvX Partners deal represents the company’s largest publicly disclosed financing to date and highlights growing interest in alternative growth financing among Ukrainian consumer technology companies.