Carl Pei is one of the most well known names in the startup circles considering he gave the world one its best smartphone brands OnePlus. Pei shared a vision with his OnePlus co founder Pete Lau, to develop a ‘flagship killer’ mobile phone which could compete with the likes of iPhones and Samsung smartphones but, at the same time having a much lesser price point. Much of OnePlus’s current popularity is credited to Pei but in October 2020, Carl Pei said the time came for him to leave OnePlus and focus on other interests.
Since then, Pei had been working on his new startup in the audio hardware sector. Carl Pei unveiled the name of his startup which is now called as Nothing, on January 27th, 2021. Since then, Nothing has been attracting a lot of investors and the latest to invest in the startup is Alphabet. In a series round conducted by the investment arm of Alphabet, Google Ventures (GV,) Nothing raised $ 15 million. The fundraising takes the total amount of financing Nothing raised to over $ 22 million.
Other investors include Tony Fadell (Principal at Future Shape and the Inventor of the iPod,) Casey Neistat (YouTuber,) Kevin Lin (Co founder of Twitch,) Steve Huffman (CEO of Reddit,) Liam Casey (Founder and CEO, PCH,) Paddy Cosgrave (Founder of Web Summit,) Kunal Shah (CEO of CRED) and Josh Buckley (CEO of Product Hunt.)
ALSO READ: CRED’s Kunal Shah Invests In One Plus Founder Carl Pei’s Startup
Nothing’s first wireless earphones will be unveiled in the summer of 2021. Nothing aims to build an ecosystem of listening devices which talk to each other. Pei said “We are building an ecosystem of smart devices. We will start with simpler products, wireless earbuds. We are going to have multiple products throughout the year, not just audio products, and eventually we want to build it so these devices talk to each other (sic.)” Pei was a huge part of OnePlus product expansion from just a smartphone to smart televisions, android watch and hearing devices. OnPlus managed to build an ecosystem with their devices and Carl Pei would be hoping to recreate a similar ecosystem with his audio hardware. We should not be surprised it Nothing launches a home voice assistant propelled by AI and machine learning similar to Amazon Echo or Google Home.
