Humane, a startup founded by ex-Apple design and engineering team members Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by Kindred Ventures. The funding round also saw participation from SK Networks, LG Technology Ventures, Microsoft, Volvo Cars Tech Fund, Tiger Global, Qualcomm Ventures and OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman, among others.
Humane is building an “integrated device and cloud services platform” for AI and has so far raised $230 million from existing and previous investors, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. The company’s workforce has grown to 200 employees, with Humane promising to reveal what it’s been building for the past five years this spring.
Netflix Rolls Out Customizable Subtitle Options for TV Users Globally
Noorvia and Neat Partner to Bring Immersive Virtual Meeting Solutions to GCC and Egypt
Humane’s work has been shrouded in mystery, but the company’s patent portfolio and hiring reveal some clues. In 2020, the startup filed an application for a “body-worn device” that uses a “laser projection system” instead of a display – essentially projected AR glasses that can identify objects in the real world and apply digital imagery to them.
According to blogger John Gruber, who has seen a leaked copy of Humane’s 2021 pitch deck, the company is working on something akin to a Star Trek communicator badge, with an AI-connected always-on camera saving photos and videos to the cloud and lidar sensors for world-mapping and detecting hand gestures.
