Nirva Raises $33M for a Pendant That Only Listens to You

Ambient AI is having a moment. In 2026, Amazon launched a new wrist-worn device with Bee; a former Plaud executive launched ambient apps through a startup called Ambi, which also aims to build its own hardware; and Apple introduced Voice Intelligence features during its September iPhone launch. Now, a company called Nirva is betting on a jewelry-like pendant and its ability to listen only to the wearer.

The startup today announced a new $25 million pre-Series A round, adding to the $8 million it raised earlier in the year from investors including Lightspeed and South Park Commons, bringing its total raise to $33 million.

Nirva was founded in 2025 by two former Meta Reality Labs employees, Wei Lyu and Jason Chen, along with Hanying Hu, who founded a fashion and jewelry brand.

The company's first device is a pendant, which can also be worn as a bracelet. It weighs only around eight grams, making it easy to wear all day, and its battery lasts up to three days on a single charge. Longer term, Nirva aims to release more devices.

In a call with TechCrunch, Nirva CEO Lyu said the company wanted to build a wearable that blends in with fashion while also providing value to users.

"This is a piece of jewelry that only focuses on listening to your own speech. We are not like a voice recorder or a meeting note taker. One key difference between us and Taya, Vocci, or Sandbar Ring is that we're always passively listening to your own speech. So it's always on. It keeps modeling the user and modeling your mind," Lyu said.

For ambient devices, privacy is a major concern, as people may not want to be recorded all the time. Devices like the Ray-Ban Meta have also instilled fear in those around the wearer that they are being recorded too.

Nirva addresses this problem by asking users to record snippets of their voice during onboarding and building its model based on that. During use, the device filters out conversations or data captured from other people nearby, meaning it only records the wearer. In addition, Nirva by default does not retain any audio data or transcripts after processing conversations.

via TechCrunch AI