<p>Bengaluru: UK-based smartphone maker Nothing announced on Tuesday that it has raised $200 million in a Series C round at a $1.3 billion valuation. It will build an AI-native platform in which hardware and software converge into a single intelligent system.</p><p>"This funding round allows us to execute on this vision by accelerating our innovation roadmap and further scaling our distribution. Our round was led by Tiger Global, with significant support from existing shareholders GV, Highland Europe, EQT, Latitude, I2BF and Tapestry, alongside new strategic backing from Nikhil Kamath and Qualcomm Ventures," Carl Pei, CEO and Co-founder of Nothing said.</p><p>Pei founded Nothing in 2020 after leaving OnePlus, and in 2022, he introduced the brand's first smartphone.</p>.Gemini AI: How to use Gen AI writing tool on Gboard keypad on Android phones.<p>"When we started Nothing, we had a thesis that if we could build a smartphone business at scale and own the last-mile distribution point in consumer tech, we would be well-positioned for the next technology shift. Although we didn’t know what that would look like at the time, the opportunity is now crystal clear. From the start, we knew that the foundation had to be an end-to-end value chain capable of delivering products at speed, scale, and quality. As we’ve seen from many others who have tried, building a hardware company is hard. There are many potential failure points and almost no room for error. For us, it required assembling a team that balanced a pragmatic approach of rapidly launching products, with an innovative mindset to deliver experiences that our community would immediately love," the co-founder said.</p><p>In four years, the company has shipped millions of devices, and it began 2025 by crossing $1 billion in total sales, while growing 150 per cent in 2024.</p><p>In the last 18 years, the smartphone has become ubiquitous. It is the primary personal computing tool to manage the countless tasks of daily life. Beyond its distribution scale, what makes the smartphone the most powerful consumer device in the market is its unmatched access to contextual information and user knowledge. The co-founder in a note added that for this reason, he believes the smartphone will remain one of the most important devices in the <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/artificial-intelligence">AI</a> era.</p><p>On the other hand, while AI has made revolutionary progress in the last three years, the smartphone experience has barely evolved. Most of the innovation has been underwhelming, limited to incremental improvements in photo editing, translations, and assistant features that barely work.</p><p>"For AI to reach its full potential, consumer hardware must reinvent itself alongside it. This is the opportunity we see for Nothing. We see a future where operating systems are significantly different from the ones today. Each system will know its user deeply, and be hyper-personalised to each individual....In the near-term, we believe that the smartphone will remain the only device shipping at billion-unit scale each year. But soon, we’ll all be carrying an additional device that will be just as important. In the coming years, we’ll learn that the more context we can feed our AI, the more useful it becomes," he added in a note.</p>
<p>Bengaluru: UK-based smartphone maker Nothing announced on Tuesday that it has raised $200 million in a Series C round at a $1.3 billion valuation. It will build an AI-native platform in which hardware and software converge into a single intelligent system.</p><p>"This funding round allows us to execute on this vision by accelerating our innovation roadmap and further scaling our distribution. Our round was led by Tiger Global, with significant support from existing shareholders GV, Highland Europe, EQT, Latitude, I2BF and Tapestry, alongside new strategic backing from Nikhil Kamath and Qualcomm Ventures," Carl Pei, CEO and Co-founder of Nothing said.</p><p>Pei founded Nothing in 2020 after leaving OnePlus, and in 2022, he introduced the brand's first smartphone.</p>.Gemini AI: How to use Gen AI writing tool on Gboard keypad on Android phones.<p>"When we started Nothing, we had a thesis that if we could build a smartphone business at scale and own the last-mile distribution point in consumer tech, we would be well-positioned for the next technology shift. Although we didn’t know what that would look like at the time, the opportunity is now crystal clear. From the start, we knew that the foundation had to be an end-to-end value chain capable of delivering products at speed, scale, and quality. As we’ve seen from many others who have tried, building a hardware company is hard. There are many potential failure points and almost no room for error. For us, it required assembling a team that balanced a pragmatic approach of rapidly launching products, with an innovative mindset to deliver experiences that our community would immediately love," the co-founder said.</p><p>In four years, the company has shipped millions of devices, and it began 2025 by crossing $1 billion in total sales, while growing 150 per cent in 2024.</p><p>In the last 18 years, the smartphone has become ubiquitous. It is the primary personal computing tool to manage the countless tasks of daily life. Beyond its distribution scale, what makes the smartphone the most powerful consumer device in the market is its unmatched access to contextual information and user knowledge. The co-founder in a note added that for this reason, he believes the smartphone will remain one of the most important devices in the <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/artificial-intelligence">AI</a> era.</p><p>On the other hand, while AI has made revolutionary progress in the last three years, the smartphone experience has barely evolved. Most of the innovation has been underwhelming, limited to incremental improvements in photo editing, translations, and assistant features that barely work.</p><p>"For AI to reach its full potential, consumer hardware must reinvent itself alongside it. This is the opportunity we see for Nothing. We see a future where operating systems are significantly different from the ones today. Each system will know its user deeply, and be hyper-personalised to each individual....In the near-term, we believe that the smartphone will remain the only device shipping at billion-unit scale each year. But soon, we’ll all be carrying an additional device that will be just as important. In the coming years, we’ll learn that the more context we can feed our AI, the more useful it becomes," he added in a note.</p>