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The Finance Base
AT Protocol

Mark Cuban backs Skylight, a Seattle startup building a more portable TikTok alternative

Skylight Social is a Seattle-founded short-video app backed by Mark Cuban. Its AT Protocol foundation is designed to make identities and audiences more portable than on TikTok, but scale, monetization and reliability remain unproven.

By TheFinanceBase Team 6 min read

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Mark Cuban invested in Skylight Social, a Seattle startup founded by Tori (also called Victoria) White and Reed Harmeyer. The company launched its short-form video app in April 2025 after about 10 weeks of development. Unlike TikTok, Skylight is built on the AT Protocol, the open technology associated with Bluesky, so a user’s identity, connections and posts are designed to work across compatible services.

That makes Skylight more than a TikTok clone, but it does not make it a proven replacement. The pre-seed round included Cuban and Seattle-based Graham & Walker Venture Fund; the amount, valuation and Cuban’s ownership remain undisclosed.

What Mark Cuban actually backed

Reports published April 1, 2025 describe Cuban as an investor in Skylight Social, not as its founder, operator or confirmed board member. Graham & Walker Venture Fund, led by Leslie Feinzaig, also participated in the pre-seed financing. Public coverage did not disclose the dollar amount, valuation, Cuban’s stake or a complete list of investors.

Cuban had already said in January 2025 that he was interested in funding a TikTok alternative built on AT Protocol. The investment followed concern about a possible U.S. TikTok ban or forced ownership change, but his backing is not evidence that Skylight will displace TikTok.

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TechCrunch reported Cuban’s January 2025 position, while GeekWire covered the Skylight financing and launch.

Who founded Skylight?

Tori (Victoria) White

White is Skylight’s CEO. TechCrunch describes her as a former travel influencer and self-taught software developer. She used her existing TikTok audience to document development and recruit early testers.

Reed Harmeyer

Harmeyer is the CTO. White and Harmeyer previously led Terris, a Seattle company focused on an AI whiteboard and React-app prototyping.

One report calls the CEO Victoria White, while TechCrunch and Skylight materials use Tori White. The available reporting treats those names as referring to the same founder.

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Why the AT Protocol matters

AT Protocol, short for Authenticated Transfer Protocol, is intended to let multiple social applications share identity, social relationships and content instead of forcing everything into one company’s database. Bluesky is the best-known service in this ecosystem.

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Skylight says people can sign in through an existing Bluesky account and carry followers and connections into its video app. A video posted through Skylight can potentially be viewed or engaged with by people using Bluesky or another compatible application.

Traditional platform model Skylight’s AT Protocol proposition
Your identity and social graph are generally tied to one service. Identity and relationships are designed for use across compatible services.
Leaving often means rebuilding an audience from scratch. Compatible services may preserve parts of your social graph.
The app and the network are effectively bundled together. The protocol and individual apps are more distinct.
One company determines the primary feed and rules. Different apps can provide different feeds and controls over the same broader network.

Portability is not total portability. Features such as rankings, moderation decisions, drafts, effects, sounds, analytics and monetization may not transfer between apps. The day-to-day result depends on how each service implements AT Protocol. Skylight’s “no lock-in” and user-ownership language is a company claim, not an independently demonstrated guarantee (Skylight’s stated mission).

What the app does

At launch, Skylight offered the familiar short-video mechanics:

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  • Vertical video and an endless scrolling feed
  • User profiles and following
  • Likes, comments and sharing or reposting
  • An in-app video editor
  • Videos of up to three minutes
  • Curated or custom feeds

These features make the product recognizable to TikTok users. The architectural difference is that Skylight is intended to interoperate with the wider AT Protocol network rather than operate as a completely closed social graph.

Skylight versus TikTok

Question What is established about Skylight What remains unproven
Video format Short-form vertical video, with up to three-minute videos reported at launch. Whether its editing, effects and sound catalog match TikTok.
Social graph Designed to work with Bluesky and other AT Protocol services. How much of a creator’s audience and engagement transfers in practice.
Discovery Curated and custom feeds are advertised. TikTok-level recommendation quality, search or retention.
Creator business No specific payout, advertising or tipping program was established in the available reports. Direct monetization, analytics, promotion tools and revenue sharing.
Scale Skylight reported more than 380,000 users in January 2026. Whether that means registered, monthly-active or daily-active users.
Operations A Public Benefit Corporation with a stated user-well-being purpose. Whether moderation, reliability and infrastructure can operate at TikTok scale.

The fair description is an early short-form-video alternative with a different architecture, not a one-for-one TikTok replacement. TikTok remains the benchmark for audience size, trend discovery, music licensing and mature creator tooling, although it uses a more centralized platform model.

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How big is Skylight now?

In a January 26, 2026 report, TechCrunch said Skylight had surpassed 380,000 users after developments involving TikTok’s U.S. ownership. That was a company-reported figure at that date, not an independently audited monthly-active-user count. The report did not define “users,” and the number should not be presented as Skylight’s current total in October 2026.

The same report said Bluesky had more than 42 million users. Bluesky’s network size is not Skylight’s user base. Skylight’s website has also referred to more than 40 million AT Protocol users, which describes the broader ecosystem rather than the video app alone.

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Availability and how to sign up

Skylight has an official website and apps for iOS and Android. The U.S. App Store listing was free when crawled and required iOS or iPadOS 15.1 or later. Google Play showed at least 100,000 downloads; that is a store threshold, not a count of active users.

  1. Check the current listing for your country and device because operating-system requirements and features can change.
  2. Install the official app from Apple’s App Store or Google Play.
  3. Create or connect an account through Bluesky, as described in Skylight’s support documentation.
  4. Review which feeds, follows and controls are available in Skylight rather than assuming every Bluesky feature appears identically.
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What the Public Benefit Corporation status means

Skylight identifies itself as a Public Benefit Corporation and says its purpose includes human flourishing through digital social connection, user ownership and a business model tied to well-being. That legal form records a public purpose alongside the company’s commercial obligations.

It does not guarantee profitability, privacy, effective moderation or continued operation. It does not prevent an acquisition, a shutdown, policy changes or technical failures.

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Reasons to try Skylight

  • You want a TikTok-like short-video feed without making one company the permanent home of your social graph.
  • You already use Bluesky and want to experiment with an AT Protocol video app.
  • You value the possibility of moving between compatible services.
  • You prefer testing a smaller, creator-focused platform while the ecosystem is developing.
  • You are concerned about dependence on one company or a national regulatory decision.

Reasons to wait or keep TikTok

  • You need TikTok-scale reach, mature creator monetization or a large established audience.
  • You depend on extensive music libraries, effects, live video or advanced advertising tools.
  • You expect consistently strong recommendations, search and reliability.
  • You need assurance that followers, sounds, drafts, rankings and monetization records will transfer across apps.
  • You require a well-established moderation and safety operation.

Google Play reviews include user-reported complaints about crashes, freezes, confusing feeds, unwanted content and login or launch problems. Those reviews are signals rather than independently verified testing, so prospective users should treat reliability as an open question.

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Questions creators should answer before switching

  • Is there a current tipping, subscription, advertising or revenue-sharing program?
  • Are music and sound libraries licensed for the regions where you publish?
  • Can you export original videos and useful metadata?
  • What audience analytics are available?
  • Which service controls discovery, and can followers on other AT Protocol apps reliably see your posts?
  • How are moderation appeals handled when the same post appears under different services’ rules?

The available reporting does not establish answers to those commercial and operational questions. Creators should verify them in the app’s current terms and support materials before treating Skylight as a primary business channel.

The bottom line on Cuban’s investment

Cuban backed Skylight because its AT Protocol foundation addresses a problem he has repeatedly highlighted: platform lock-in. Skylight combines familiar vertical video with an attempt to make identity and relationships more portable. That is a meaningful distinction from TikTok’s closed model, but portability alone does not create a large audience, reliable recommendations, strong moderation or creator income.

For users, Skylight is worth trying as an early interoperable experiment—especially if they already have a Bluesky account. For creators who need proven reach and monetization, it is better treated as an additional channel until its scale, reliability and business tools are demonstrated.

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