GoKawiilUltrahuman, an Indian startup best known for making smart rings, has raised $70 million in a new funding round that includes backing from Qualcomm’s venture arm, as it looks beyond sleep and health tracking to build a ring that can run software on the device and eventually power everything from AI interactions to games.
The round values Bengaluru-based Ultrahuman at $365 million, about three times its $120 million valuation in 2023, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
Qualcomm Ventures participated in the financing alongside U.S. diagnostics giant Labcorp, Alpha Wave, Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, and Alteria Capital. The round includes $65 million in primary equity and $5 million in debt, Ultrahuman founder and CEO Mohit Kumar said in an interview.
Ultrahuman is also working with Qualcomm on a new ring that will use the U.S. chipmaker’s silicon, replacing the Nordic Semiconductor chip it currently uses, Kumar told TechCrunch. The added computing power will allow more software and algorithms to run directly on the ring, reducing its reliance on a phone or the cloud, he said.
“All ring devices today are like trackers,” Kumar said. “You put on the ring, it measures your heart rate, your movement, your sleep.” Ultrahuman’s goal, he stated, is to make the ring more like a computer, where programs and algorithms can run on the device itself.
This could open the ring to use cases well beyond health and sleep tracking, something Ultrahuman rings are known for.
Developers, Kumar said, could eventually write their own programs for the device, while Ultrahuman is exploring ways for the ring to work as a pointer or mouse, a game controller, a car key, and an interface for interacting with AI.
“The future of AI is personal, ambient and always on,” said Quinn Li, global head of Qualcomm Ventures, adding that Ultrahuman is building a new generation of “personal AI devices.”
While the Qualcomm-powered ring is planned to come later, Ultrahuman is not waiting for the new hardware to start testing that idea. Kumar told TechCrunch that some of the new capabilities will arrive on the startup’s existing Ring Air and Ring Pro (pictured above) through a software update by the end of September, including features that would let the ring work as a game controller and interact with AI applications, as well as the ability to allow third-party developers to build new features.
Ultrahuman’s idea is to take advantage of the ring’s position on a user’s finger, Kumar said. Unlike a smartwatch, which he described as more akin to “a phone on the wrist,” a ring could act as a precise pointing and interaction device while also carrying physiological context such as a user’s heart rate, temperature, and movement.
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