April 15 (Reuters) -

Venture capitalist Naval Ravikant has rolled out a social

media app centered around communicating through voice notes,

looking to challenge the dominance of text-based platforms such

as Elon Musk-owned X and Meta Platforms' ( META ) Threads.

AirChat has seen thousands of downloads across iOS and

Android since its Friday launch and sparked a surge of requests

on online platforms for access to the app that is currently

invite-only.

Founded by Ravikant and former Tinder product chief Brian

Norgard, the app is banking on voice interactions to change the

way people connect online despite the lackluster growth of

similar platforms such as pandemic-era darling Clubhouse.

AirChat was the 23rd-most popular social media app in the

U.S. on Apple's App Store as of Monday, according to market

research firm SensorTower.

It has a design that mirrors most social media platforms and

allows users to post, scroll through a feed, and message other

users privately, in the form of audio recordings.

The voice notes play automatically and can be paused. The

app also generates transcripts of the notes simultaneously.

Ravikant, who has made seed investments in companies

including Uber Technologies ( UBER ), argues that voice is a

more intimate medium for conversation than text.

"Humans are all meant to get along with other humans, it

just requires the natural voice," he posted on AirChat.

The app has seen positive reception from social media users.

"The flexibility in transforming from one medium to another

opens interesting new doors for capturing and sharing ideas

online," one user posted on X. Others said they found the

voice-to-text transcription to be accurate in initial tests.

Still, other new social media startups have struggled to

draw significant user bases.

Mastodon had 1.5 million monthly active users and Twitter

co-founders Jack Dorsey's Bluesky amassed 2 million, according

to a report published by MIT Technology Review in January.

A previous version of AirChat was released last year.

(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika

Syamnath)