Mark Cuban Supports Skylight, a TikTok Alternative Powered by Bluesky’s Underlying Technology

Skylight, a startup challenging TikTok with a more open alternative, is launching its mobile app to the public on Tuesday after just 10 weeks of development. Supported by Mark Cuban and other investors, Skylight joins a growing list of apps built on the AT Protocol—the same technology behind the social network Bluesky and several other emerging platforms.

Co-founded by CEO Tori White and CTO Reed Harmeyer, Skylight delivers a short-form video experience with familiar features, including an in-app video editor, options to comment, like, and share videos, personalized user profiles, and the ability to follow others.

Since Skylight runs on the AT Protocol (also known as “ATProto“), users instantly connect with Bluesky’s network of over 33.8 million people. This integration allows videos shared on Skylight to reach and engage users across Bluesky and other ATProto-based apps, such as Flashes, a platform focused on photo content.

Early Funding and Support

The company is backed by a pre-seed funding round led by Cuban, who expressed earlier this year his desire to support a TikTok alternative based on the AT Protocol. The Graham & Walker Venture Fund, led by Leslie Feinzaig, also contributed to the investment.

White, a former travel influencer and self-taught software developer based in Seattle, explains that she and co-founder Harmeyer were motivated to create Skylight after hearing about the potential U.S. ban on TikTok.

To prepare for the ban, which is currently on hold, White had saved her TikTok videos but remained concerned about losing access to her community and comments. At the time, she and Harmeyer had already been experimenting with ATProto and recognized its potential.

Confidence in ATProto’s Stability

“The first thing that caught our attention about ATProto was that Bluesky was actually working,” Harmeyer told TechCrunch at the ATmosphere Conference in Seattle in March. “We didn’t see the ‘fail whale,’” he added, referencing the error graphic from Twitter’s early days when the platform frequently crashed. “That gave us confidence in the technology behind it.”

Harmeyer and White soon recognized that this was the perfect opportunity to create a new social app on the protocol—one that could be “ban-proof.”

Drawing on her background as an influencer, White began sharing Skylight’s development journey on TikTok. This strategy helped generate awareness and attract a growing community of potential users.

Building Awareness from Day One

“We started with distribution,” White explained. “I actually made a video before we even wrote a single line of code … so people could follow our journey as we built,” she told TechCrunch at the conference. “We realized, oh wow, we’re creating something we think is amazing, but no one knows about it yet. So we had to find a way to get people interested—because we knew there was a need for it,” she added.

Today, White’s TikTok account, @buildwithtori, has nearly 50,000 followers, many of whom became early testers of Skylight.

Similar to Bluesky, Skylight now allows video uploads of up to three minutes, an increase from its initial one-minute limit. However, White envisions Skylight evolving beyond just a decentralized TikTok alternative.

She suggests that Skylight will eventually offer users more control over their feed, including new interactive gestures beyond traditional swiping and scrolling.

Additional upcoming features include support for sounds, duets, stitching, bookmarks, and playlists.

Currently in beta on the Google Play Store, the app has now launched publicly on Apple’s App Store following its initial testing phase.

Read the original article on: TechCrunch

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