Opal

CEO of Opal. Focus better @opalapp.

Opal is a screen time and focus app for iPhone and Mac that helps people block distracting apps, schedule deep work sessions, and track how their attention is spent across the day. Based in Paris, Opal is positioned as an attention management app, helping students and professionals drown out distractions from screens to deliver their best work. This launch reframes the product around a bigger thesis tied to AI: as powerful models become ambient, the scarce resource shifts from intelligence to focus, and Opal wants to be the layer that protects it. The new version moves beyond simple app blocking toward what the team calls an operating system for attention, measuring focus throughout the day, nudging users to pause, putting them into deep work in one tap, and structuring the day so they stick to it. The pitch matters now because Opal has grown into the leading focus and screen time app at a moment when generative AI is intensifying the same engagement dynamics that social media built. Founder and CEO Kenneth Schlenker has been vocal about that risk, arguing we need to fear AI taking our attention, and that social media hooked us while AI is perfecting the addiction. Opal was founded in 2020 by Kenneth Schlenker with a mission to help a billion people focus better day to day , and the company has stayed deliberately small while scaling, backed by Speedinvest since 2020 and launched publicly in late 2022, reaching $10 million in ARR with just 11 people . For founders, investors, and operators watching the consumer AI wave, this launch is a clear bet that the next decade of personal productivity will be decided less by who has the best model and more by who can hold their own focus.

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