Nirva raises $33M for a pendant that only listens to you
Nirva, a 2025‑founded startup from former Meta Reality Labs engineers Wei Lyu and Jason Chen and fashion designer Hanying Hu, announced a $25 million pre‑Series A round, bringing its total funding to $33 million.
Nirva, a 2025‑founded startup from former Meta Reality Labs engineers Wei Lyu and Jason Chen and fashion designer Hanying Hu, announced a $25 million pre‑Series A round, bringing its total funding to $33 million. The company will launch a lightweight pendant that can also be worn as a bracelet.
The eight‑gram device is designed for all‑day wear and holds a battery that lasts up to three days on a single charge. The pendant is built to listen only to its wearer. During onboarding, users record short voice snippets that train a personal model. While the device is always on, it filters out conversations from other people and discards audio and transcripts after processing.
The companion app analyzes tone, pitch, volume and speed to surface insights about the user’s emotions, communication style and daily patterns, and can send reminders—such as nudging a user to thank a loved one. Nirva positions itself as a personal‑insights tool rather than a productivity gadget, aiming to help users improve self‑understanding, self‑compassion and self‑awareness.
Its privacy‑focused design seeks to address the broader concerns that have surrounded ambient AI wearables like Ray‑Ban Meta and Apple’s Voice Intelligence.
Orders for the $249 pendant will open in November, with early shipments targeted
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Original publication: 22 October 2026 18:56