Smartphone startup Nothing introduced in the present day that it closed its Sequence C spherical of $200 million, which was led by the funding agency Tiger International. With this spherical, the buyer electronics firm is now valued at $1.3 billion.
Different buyers within the spherical included present backers resembling enterprise outfits GV, Highland Europe, EQT, Latitude, I2BF, and Tapestry. The corporate, based by Carl Pei — who beforehand co-founded Chinese language smartphone maker OnePlus, identified for high-performance units at aggressive costs — additionally obtained new strategic backing from Nikhil Kamath and Qualcomm Ventures. The brand new funding takes Nothing’s complete funding to over $450 million.
“Carl and the team at Nothing are reimagining hardware and software with an AI overlay to position their products for the next era of personal technology. We’re excited to partner with this exceptional team as they pioneer AI-native experiences,” mentioned Matt Watcher, a companion at Tiger International, in an announcement to TechCrunch.
The corporate mentioned it’ll quickly open up one other neighborhood funding spherical. In earlier neighborhood rounds the corporate raised $11.5 million in complete.
The corporate has wager on design differentiation thus far, and it has served the startup effectively. Nothing says it clocked in over $1 billion in complete gross sales earlier this yr. An early investor within the startup instructed TechCrunch that they’re pleased with the corporate’s progress trajectory and highway to profitability.
The startup mentioned that up up to now, it has frolicked constructing a provide chain and infrastructure to launch a product inside months and ship it worldwide. Notably, its not too long ago launched Telephone (3) — which showcases the corporate’s signature clear design aesthetic and distinctive consumer interface — was solely its second handset to obtain normal distribution within the U.S.
Nothing has lower than 1% market share globally, however in India, its largest market, it has managed to seize 2% share, in keeping with analytics agency IDC. The corporate has shipped 5.1 million models thus far, with the corporate transport over one million models simply in Q2 2025. IDC mentioned its international enlargement has been sluggish as 80% of its models are nonetheless offered in Asia.
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Pei has mentioned that he desires to focus on his model in direction of the subsequent technology of customers who may search alternate options past incumbents.
“The way we’ve differentiated our brand and differentiated our products is really resonating with our group of consumers. We’re targeting the next generation. They’re interested in tech. They’re interested in creativity and design, and we really found resonance among that consumer group,” he instructed TechCrunch through the Telephone (3)’s launch in July.
Highland Europe companion Tony Zappalà, who’s an present investor within the firm, mentioned that the corporate has delivered on its guarantees and has room to develop on this big trade. He mentioned that Nothing is now a acknowledged title within the trade, which has its personal benefits by way of attracting expertise and constructing provide chain relationships.
AI imaginative and prescient
The corporate desires to construct an working system with AI and personalization options that may prolong past smartphones. At the moment, now we have solely seen a couple of glimpses of AI within the working system with options like Important Search, a sensible search perform that helps customers discover data throughout their gadget. The startup has employed Sélim Benayat, a former govt from Linktree and founding father of Bento (a platform that creates customized touchdown pages for social media profiles), to guide its AI providers efforts.
Zappalà mentioned that the problem in constructing such an working system is each a buyer expertise and a belief subject.
“I think the challenge of building an effective AI-first experience is not unique to Nothing. This is more than a technical challenge; AI features need to reach a stage where users are not double-checking the output,” he mentioned.
Corporations like Apple have struggled to combine AI options successfully into their working programs. For Nothing, the issue is discovering the appropriate steadiness between newness and helpfulness whereas executing AI options.
Pei believes that smartphones stay one of the best ways to ship AI, and they are going to be “the dominant form factor for all consumer AI applications” for a minimum of three to 5 years, he mentioned through the dialog with TechCrunch in July.
With this fundraising announcement, the corporate mentioned it plans to launch an AI-first gadget subsequent yr. Nevertheless, there haven’t been many success tales within the AI {hardware} house. AI {hardware} startup Humane was offered to HP after battling its AI Pin gadget, and AI assistant firm Rabbit has has been working to enhance its R1 gadget, releasing a new software program replace not too long ago after the corporate wasn’t glad with the primary iteration.
