Midjourney Buys Astrology App Co-Star in Its First Known Acquisition
The AI image company is branching into consumer apps, starting with a deal for the popular daily horoscope service used by millions.
Key points
- Midjourney announced Thursday it has acquired Co-Star, a personalized astrology app with daily horoscopes and compatibility features.
- Co-Star founder Banu Guler will remain in charge of the app and also become Midjourney's chief design officer.
- Financial terms of the deal, which reportedly closed in spring 2025, have not been disclosed.
- Midjourney plans to use Guler's team to build its first standalone consumer apps, including an image-generation app.
Midjourney, the AI startup best known for turning text prompts into images, has made its first known acquisition: Co-Star, a free astrology app that delivers personalized daily horoscopes to millions of users. The deal was announced Thursday and first reported by Bloomberg.
Co-Star is not a simple fortune-cookie generator. The app combines data from NASA's planetary records with AI, the technology behind modern chatbots, and editorial input from human writers to produce advice tailored to each user's birth chart. It also lets friends compare their astrological compatibility. The acquisition price has not been disclosed.
Why does an image AI company want an astrology app?
Midjourney wants to build real consumer apps, and Co-Star gives it a team that already knows how to do that. Midjourney founder David Holz told Bloomberg that Co-Star founder Banu Guler and her team will lead the company's push into standalone products, starting with a dedicated image-generation app.
Right now, Midjourney's AI models live on the web and inside Discord, a chat platform popular with gaming and creative communities. A proper app would put Midjourney's tools directly on people's phones, a much bigger audience.
Guler herself takes on a dual role. She stays in charge of Co-Star day-to-day, and she also becomes Midjourney's chief design officer, shaping how all of the company's future products look and feel.
What changes for Co-Star users?
For now, nothing visible changes. Co-Star remains a free app, and its existing features, the daily horoscopes, the compatibility checks, the NASA-sourced planetary data, carry on as before. No shutdown, no paywall announced.
The longer-term picture is less certain. Midjourney has ambitions well beyond image generation: Holz has previously described goals that stretch from medical imaging to scientific visualization. Co-Star's experience building a consumer product with a loyal daily audience fits that expansion, even if astrology and AI art seem like an odd pairing at first glance.
What should readers watch for?
If you use Co-Star, keep an eye on its privacy policy over the coming months. Acquisitions often trigger updates to how personal data, including birth dates, locations, and friendship connections, gets shared across a new parent company's systems. Check the app's settings for any new data-sharing options and choose the most restrictive ones if you prefer.
More broadly, this deal signals that Midjourney is moving fast from a single-product AI research outfit toward a consumer technology company. The first Midjourney app, whenever it arrives, will be worth watching closely.
