Nirva raises $33M for a pendant that only listens to the wearer

Nirva, founded by former Meta Reality Labs employees Wei Lyu and Jason Chen, along with Hanying Hu, secured $33 million in total funding, including a recent $25 million pre-Series A round, adding to $8 million raised earlier this year. The company's first device is a lightweight pendant, weighing about eight grams and lasting up to three days on a single charge. It is designed to passively listen only to the wearer's speech, filtering out conversations from others to address privacy concerns, and by default, it does not keep any audio data or transcripts after processing. The companion app parses speech to generate personalized insights related to the user's personality, patterns, and daily life, positioning Nirva as a personal insights company rather than a productivity startup.