Nirva Secures $33 Million Funding for AI Jewelry Pendant
Nirva announced the completion of a $25 million pre-Series A funding round, adding to the previous $8 million seed round, bringing total funding to $33 million, with investors including Lightspeed and South Park Commons.
The company was founded in 2025 by former Meta Reality Labs employees Wei Lyu and Jason Chen, along with jewelry designer Hanying Hu. The first product is an approximately 8-gram titanium pendant that can be worn as a necklace or bracelet, with a battery life of up to three days, passively listening to the wearer's own voice while filtering out others' sounds and discarding processed audio.
The device is priced at $249 and is available in silver, matte silver, black, and gold. It received one of the CNET Best of CES awards at CES 2026, with a waitlist of over 9,000 people. Orders are expected to open this winter, with the first batch of products planned for delivery within the year.
The founding team includes the CEO and CTO from Meta Reality Labs, the research head from Headspace, and the marketing head from Hatch, with a team of about 20 people based in South Park, San Francisco, currently hiring engineers, researchers, and designers.
The product is positioned as a personal self-understanding tool, analyzing tone, pitch, volume, and speech rate to generate emotional and communication insights, along with reminders. Competing products include AI wearables like Taya, Friend, and Bee.
From a market perspective, this event marks the entry of VC funds into the intersection of AI wearables and fashion. The funding from institutions like Lightspeed will flow into product development, mass production, and team expansion. Beneficiaries include early adopters and privacy-conscious users, while competitors with always-on recording wearables face pressure.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Wei Lyu previously worked on wearable products at Meta Reality Labs and XREAL, while Jason Chen held engineering management roles at Meta Reality Labs. Hanying Hu has designed jewelry for Lady Gaga and BLACKPINK. The team combines hardware, software, and fashion design, winning a CES award just 90 days after the company's establishment.
The capital path reflects rapid financing from seed to pre-Series A, aimed at advancing the mass production of the pendant and opening orders. The motivation is to shift AI from glasses or clip forms to everyday wearable jewelry, reducing user resistance to always-on devices; by only listening to their own voice and processing locally, they differentiate from privacy-sensitive competing products.
This is similar to other attempts to integrate sensors into jewelry or accessories, such as WHOOP or Oura's aesthetic upgrade routes. The current phase is a transition of AI wearables from functional devices to fashion accessories.
Essentially, this represents a technological substitution and restructuring of the industry chain. The mechanism lies in the reliance on retrospective recollection in traditional diaries or therapists, while always-worn devices can capture voice patterns as they occur; combining fashion design with AI insights allows the device to become a form of identity expression rather than just a tool, thus changing the user's acceptance of continuous monitoring.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Wearables must first become everyday accessories to be worn all day
Listening only to one's own voice reduces privacy resistance and differentiates from competitors
Combining fashion design with AI insights is essential for devices to enter daily habits