What is Raycast?
Raycast is a blazingly fast, keyboard-first launcher that replaces Spotlight and stitches your whole workflow into one command bar. Founded in 2020 by ex-Facebook engineers Thomas Paul Mann and Petr Nikolaev (Y Combinator W20), it lets you launch apps, search files, manage windows, run clipboard history and snippets, and control tools like Slack, Notion, Linear, Spotify, GitHub, and 1Password through more than a thousand community-built extensions.
Raycast AI
Raycast has evolved into a consumer AI hub: Quick AI answers questions straight from the launcher, AI Chat provides access to frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others under one subscription, AI Commands automate repetitive writing tasks, and AI Extensions let natural-language requests drive third-party tools. Model Context Protocol (MCP) support connects external servers into the same interface. A free tier covers core features; Pro adds unlimited AI, cloud sync, and more (from ~$8/month).
Funding and traction
Raycast raised a $15M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz and a $30M Series B led by Atomico in September 2024 — joined by Accel, Coatue, and angels like Tobi Lütke and Guillermo Rauch — to bring the launcher to Windows and iOS, both now shipping.