Smartphone startup Nothing introduced at the moment that it closed its Sequence C spherical of $200 million, which was led by the funding agency Tiger International. With this spherical, the patron electronics firm is now valued at $1.3 billion.
Different traders within the spherical included present backers equivalent to 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 acquired 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 staff at Nothing are reimagining {hardware} and software program with an AI overlay to place their merchandise for the following period of non-public expertise. We’re excited to companion with this distinctive staff as they pioneer AI-native experiences,” mentioned Matt Watcher, a companion at Tiger International, in a press release to TechCrunch.
The corporate mentioned it is going to quickly open up one other neighborhood funding spherical. In earlier neighborhood rounds the corporate raised $11.5 million in complete.
The corporate has guess on design differentiation up to now, and it has served the startup effectively. Nothing says it clocked in over $1 billion in complete gross sales earlier this 12 months. An early investor within the startup advised TechCrunch that they’re pleased with the corporate’s progress trajectory and street 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 Cellphone (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 accordance with analytics agency IDC. The corporate has shipped 5.1 million items thus far, with the corporate delivery over one million items simply in Q2 2025. IDC mentioned its international enlargement has been sluggish as 80% of its items are nonetheless offered in Asia.
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Pei has mentioned that he desires to focus on his model in direction of the following technology of customers who would possibly search options past incumbents.
“The best way we’ve differentiated our model and differentiated our merchandise is absolutely resonating with our group of customers. We’re concentrating on the following technology. They’re fascinated about tech. They’re fascinated about creativity and design, and we actually discovered resonance amongst that shopper group,” he advised TechCrunch through the Cellphone (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 enormous trade. He mentioned that Nothing is now a acknowledged identify 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 which may prolong past smartphones. At the moment, we’ve got solely seen just a few glimpses of AI within the working system with options like Important Search, a wise search perform that helps customers discover info throughout their machine. The startup has employed Sélim Benayat, a former government from Linktree and founding father of Bento (a platform that creates personalised touchdown pages for social media profiles), to steer its AI companies efforts.
Zappalà mentioned that the problem in constructing such an working system is each a buyer expertise and a belief problem.
“I feel the problem of constructing an efficient AI-first expertise isn’t distinctive to Nothing. That is greater than a technical problem; AI options want to achieve a stage the place customers will not be double-checking the output,” he mentioned.
Corporations like Apple have struggled to combine AI options successfully into their working techniques. For Nothing, the issue is discovering the precise steadiness between newness and helpfulness whereas executing AI options.
Pei believes that smartphones stay the easiest way to ship AI, and they are going to be “the dominant kind issue for all shopper AI functions” for at the very least 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 machine subsequent 12 months. Nevertheless, there haven’t been many success tales within the AI {hardware} area. AI {hardware} startup Humane was offered to HP after fighting its AI Pin machine, and AI assistant firm Rabbit has has been working to enhance its R1 machine, releasing a new software program replace not too long ago after the corporate wasn’t glad with the primary iteration.
