Two former TikTok employees built an app that coaches you on how to pose for photos

Key points

• Superpose, a new iOS camera app, launched in July 2025 and has been downloaded more than 22,000 times.
• The app uses generative AI to suggest four poses based on a photo you take of yourself or a friend.
• Users get five free AI pose generations per day, with paid packs starting at $2.99 for five extra generations.
• Superpose raised $2.2 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures, Meitu, and OVTR VC.
• Co-founder Melody Chu previously held product roles at Meta, Nextdoor, Roblox, TikTok and Slack.

The problem that sparked Superpose is almost universally relatable. Melody Chu's husband kept taking terrible photos of her. "My husband just takes awful photos of me. I don't understand how he gets me to look just so terrible all the time," she told TechCrunch. So she built an app to fix it.

Chu and co-founder Jing Liu, both former TikTok employees, launched Superpose on iOS in July. Take a selfie or a photo of a friend, and the app's AI generates four different poses to try. A match-pose feature then guides you in real time to place yourself into whichever pose you pick, while you're still looking through the camera.

Liu brings serious technical depth to the project. Before Superpose, he was a founding engineer at a 3D face-scanning startup and later worked on image and video models at TikTok. Chu ran product at Meta, Nextdoor, Roblox, TikTok and Slack before going independent.

What does the AI actually do?

It generates visual suggestions, not just text tips. The app takes your photo and produces four possible poses, which users can save or use as a real-time guide. Some suggestions are dramatic, and Chu admits certain generated poses can look uncanny, meaning slightly off in a way that feels artificial. The team is working on that.

Superpose sits in a growing category. Google added a Camera Coach feature to its Pixel phones last year, and Adobe released an AI photo-critique tool in its experimental camera app in July. Chu says Superpose wants to be the best app specifically for coached portrait photography and won't branch into AI-generated backgrounds or fantasy scenes.

"We want to lean into the core of memory capture versus putting you in a fantastical place that you've never been," Chu told TechCrunch.

How much does it cost?

Five pose generations per day are free. Beyond that, users pay $2.99 for a pack of five extra generations, or $9.99 for twenty. Users have already generated more than 190,000 poses since launch.

The $2.2 million seed round came from Khosla Ventures, selfie-app maker Meitu, and OVTR VC. Meitu built its name helping people look better in photos, which makes its involvement here logical.

Our Google Pics coverage from 1 September showed how quickly the big platforms are moving into AI-assisted image tools. Superpose is betting that a focused, coach-only approach carves out space the platforms won't bother with.

What makes Superpose genuinely interesting isn't the funding or the download count. It's the deliberate choice to keep photos real. Plenty of apps will put you on a beach you've never visited. Chu is betting there's a big audience that just wants to look good in actual pictures of their actual life. Smaller problem, probably smarter starting point.

Common questions

Is Superpose available on Android?

Not yet. The app launched on iOS in July 2025, and the founders have not announced an Android release date.

Does the app store or use photos for AI training?

Superpose has not publicly stated its data policy. If you're cautious about where your selfies go, check the app's privacy policy before downloading.

Can the AI help someone who is simply camera-shy, not just unphotogenic?

That's the core pitch. The match-pose feature guides you frame-by-frame in real time, so you're following a visual template rather than guessing. Whether that reduces anxiety or increases it depends on the person.