Pocket raises $11M in bet on rising demand for AI note-taking devices

Unlike AI gadgets similar Rabbit oregon Humane, companies gathering dedicated gadgets for signaling and transcribing meetings person really seen immoderate traction. The marketplace is immense — though a spot constrained, arsenic smartphones enactment good for specified tasks erstwhile paired with note-taking apps — and startups similar Plaud, Mobvoi, Anker, Viaim, and Vibe person jumped successful to instrumentality advantage.

In this crowded market, Y Combinator-backed Pocket thinks it tin triumph with its design, packaging and pricing. The institution sells a $129, recognition card-shaped puck, which sticks to the backmost of your phone, and promises unlimited recordings, transcriptions and to-do items, nary subscription required.

The startup says it has sold much than 130,000 units since launching past year, and that momentum has present helped it people $11 cardinal successful backing from Accel, Y Combinator, and ElevenLabs CEO and co-founder Mati Staniszewski.

Pocket’s halfway thought isn’t novel: You instrumentality the puck to the backmost of your phone, crook connected signaling during a meeting, and it’ll grounds and transcribe your conversations.

Image Credits: PocketImage Credits:Pocket

Users tin past inquire the accompanying telephone app to make summaries of meetings, inquire an AI adjunct questions astir meetings, make caput maps, and alteration the substance into antithetic templates.

While the basal transcription comes escaped with the puck, the institution sells a $ 200-per-year program to unlock unlimited AI summaries, queries to the AI assistant, regular highlights, and record attachments.

“You tin grounds connected the go, offline, and successful the field, which is precisely however lawyers, salespeople, doctors, existent property agents, operation workers, and students usage Pocket today,” Accel spouse Cecilia Wang said. “Not lone are radical contiguous alternatively than shifting absorption to instrumentality notes, but much accusation and insights besides get captured than ever before, which different would person been lost. Over time, that accumulation of insights is truly valuable: 1 cardinal spot wherever your ideas, conversations, and thoughts live, alternatively than scattered and lost,” Wang said.

Pocket was founded by Akshay Narisetti, who was a founding subordinate of rival note-taking startup Omi; and Gabriel Dymowski, who antecedently founded a blockchain-based papers absorption startup.

Pocket co-founders Akshay Narisetti and Gabriel Dymowski Image Credits: PocketImage Credits:Pocket

“We thought each gathering notetaker was built for online conversations, but thing was geared towards real-life talk. AI truly needs a batch of discourse to enactment amended for us, and a batch of that discourse exists offline,” Narisetti told TechCrunch.

For its endeavor customers, Pocket offers customized workflow management, webhook support, and integration with apps specified arsenic Google Calendar, OneDrive, Google Drive, Obsidian, Claude and Cursor. Plus, determination is simply a exemplary discourse protocol (MCP) server to link its AI adjunct to different databases.

Like different gathering notetakers, Pocket wants to assistance radical automate tasks similar drafting emails, updating CRMs, and creating enactment items based connected meetings. The institution is banking connected shipping bundle accelerated to alteration these integrations.

Devices similar Pocket undoubtedly look contention from bundle players specified arsenic Granola, Zoom, Fireflies, Otter, and Read AI. However, device-first companies similar Plaud, which is connected way to make yearly gross of $100 cardinal via bundle sales, are besides gathering endeavor capableness on with desktop apps for integer meetings.