Wrinkles is a location-aware, AI-powered audio tour app available on iOS and Android that surfaces stories tied to nearby places. Its design aims to let users hear the history and local lore around them while walking, without needing to stare at their phone screens.
Origin and founders
Wrinkles was founded by David Stemler and Ryan Hansan. David Stemler is a longtime advertising executive, and Ryan Hansan previously founded the meal delivery service ScratchDC and the shared commercial kitchen TasteLab. The two have known each other since middle school, and many of their business ideas emerged during trips they took together.
The idea for Wrinkles formed when Stemler visited the British Museum in London and used the museum’s official app for a self-guided tour. Although he found the museum app well designed, the experience left him frustrated: “I spent the entire visit heads-down, matching numbers on the walls to lists on my phone instead of taking in my surroundings while learning about them,” Stemler told TechCrunch. At the airport he called Hansan and asked, “If the phone in my pocket knows exactly where I am, shouldn’t the places in front of me be able speak?”
Content and scale
The startup says it has built a global base of 1.3 million Wrinkles (points of interest) across 177 countries. Beyond this foundational layer, historians, museums, creators and brands can add their own stories and experiences to the map. Users can discover these narratives while moving through the world or browse them remotely via the app’s map.
Features
- AI audio narration: the app recognizes a user’s location and plays narrated content tied to nearby places so users can listen rather than look at their screens.
- Interactive Q&A: users can ask questions as they explore (for example, about the source of a fountain’s water) and receive answers to deepen the tour-like experience.
- Social features: users can follow friends, family members, creators and organizations; save and share Wrinkles; and organize items into custom maps and guides.
- Personalization: people can attach family memories, photos, videos and recordings to specific places, enabling families to collaborate on and preserve stories connected to sites like a childhood home, a first date spot, or a hometown.
Audience and use cases
The founders position Wrinkles as more than a travel-only app. While it can help spontaneous travelers uncover the stories behind new places, it is also intended for people who want to learn more about buildings they pass every day or rediscover their hometown. As Ryan Hansan put it: “The common thread isn’t travel — it’s curiosity.” He adds that whereas a typical travel app might be used once a year, Wrinkles can be used on commutes, in botanical gardens, at the zoo with children, to leave a lasting family legacy, or during a trip abroad.
Business model
Although the pair have experimented with a freemium approach, they say they are committed to keeping the app free for users. Revenue primarily comes from the supply side: museums, tourism boards, universities and hotels use Wrinkles to create place-based experiences for visitors without building their own apps.
- Creators and media partners can build sponsored place-based guides.
- Businesses can promote Wrinkles tied to their locations.
- Partners can add links for booking tours, reserving tables, buying tickets or visiting businesses; Wrinkles takes a share of those transactions.
Long-term vision
The company envisions Wrinkles becoming a routine part of how people navigate and understand places—whether that means learning the history of a college campus, rediscovering a city, planning a trip on the map, or gaining a deeper appreciation of a city visited for the first time. The product aims to deliver place-based information in a natural, conversational way and to let communities, institutions and families record and share their own place histories.
