Extra: Former Pinterest Team Reimagines Email Inbox
Email has long been considered a stagnant utility, with most modern solutions merely adding AI layers or workflow tweaks to the same decades-old interface. A new startup, BuildForever, is attempting to break this cycle by rebuilding the inbox from the ground up. Their first product, Extra, focuses on transforming the overwhelming flood of digital messages into a personalized, visual, and actionable experience.
The company was founded by Naveen Gavini, a former SVP and chief product officer at Pinterest, alongside co-founders Steven Ramkumar and Albert Pereta. Gavini, who spent nearly 12 years at Pinterest, drew inspiration from his own frustrations with personal email. “I was a religious inbox zero person by day… and then I would open up my personal email, and it was just this wall of to-dos,” Gavini says. “Honestly, after 12 hours of email all day, I didn’t have the energy, so I just quit.”
How Extra Organizes Your Digital Life
Extra replaces traditional subject lines and folders with an interface designed around the user’s life. The core experience centers on a “Today” tab, which aggregates critical information in real time. Rather than presenting a chronological list of messages, the app prioritizes:
- Actionable items: A to-do list format that allows users to swipe to clear tasks.
- Good to Know updates: Shipment notifications, test results, and curated news briefings.
- Daily Cleanup: A dedicated section for unsubscribing from marketing lists and deleting bulk emails to reclaim storage.
While the app relies on background AI to categorize content, the team is careful not to market itself primarily as an “AI app.” Gavini notes that the goal is solving user problems rather than just pitching the next all-encompassing AI assistant. “When you mention AI, it kind of feels a little ‘power, user-y,'” he explains.
Currently, the app features specific tabs for News, Events, and Shopping. The Shopping tab, for instance, extracts product details from emails and presents them in a visual storefront, circumventing the issue of promotional emails getting lost in standard inbox filters.
Backing and Availability
BuildForever has secured $9.5 million in seed funding. Investors include Abstract, A* (Kevin Hartz), Felicis, and Elad Gil, alongside notable angels such as Pinterest co-founders Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp, and Gmail creator Paul Buchheit.
According to the company, beta testers have already unsubscribed from over 2 million emails and transformed 4 million messages into “Today” summaries. Extra is currently launching on iOS and the web for those on its waitlist, with plans to eventually expand its design-first approach to other communication tools.
