GoKawiilNirva raises $33M for a voice-only listening pendant
Nirva, founded in 2025 by ex-Meta Reality Labs employees Wei Lyu and Jason Chen along with jewelry designer Hanying Hu, closed a $25 million pre-Series A round. Combined with an earlier $8 million from investors including Lightspeed and South Park Commons, the startup has now raised $33 million total. Its first product is an eight-gram pendant or bracelet with a three-day battery that is designed to listen only to the wearer's own voice, using onboarding voice samples to filter out other speakers.
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The funding reflects growing investor interest in ambient AI wearables, a category also being pursued by Amazon's Bee, the startup Ambi, and Apple's Voice Intelligence features. Nirva's approach to privacy, filtering for the wearer's voice rather than recording everyone nearby, could address concerns that have dogged devices like Ray-Ban Meta glasses, though its real-world effectiveness remains unproven. CEO Wei Lyu's comparisons to competitors like Taya and Vocci suggest Nirva is positioning the device as a continuous personal mind-modeling tool rather than a simple recorder.
- Nirva raised $33M total, including a new $25M pre-Series A round
- The device is an 8-gram pendant/bracelet designed to listen only to the wearer's own voice
- Founders include two former Meta Reality Labs employees and a jewelry designer
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See Plaud Note AI Voice Recorder on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: techcrunch.com — Ivan Mehta, 2026-10-22
Published there as: “Nirva raises $33M for a pendant that only listens to you”
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