HardKr Exclusive | Former Product Lead at META and XREAL Launches Wearable Hardware Startup, Secures Tens of Millions of Seed Financing From Top U.S. VC

Hard Krypton learned that recently, wearable AI hardware brand Nirva has completed a multi-million-yuan seed round of financing, led by top US VC Lightspeed, followed by South Park Commons, with Shendu Capital acting as the long-term exclusive financial advisor. The proceeds from this round of financing will be mainly used for team expansion, mass production preparation and new product R&D.

This is an AI wearable company founded in Silicon Valley. Its founder Lyu Wei is the former product lead of META and XREAL, who has been deeply engaged in wearable device R&D for nearly a decade. Its CTO Jason is the former engineering manager of META REALITY LABS, who has built the core technical architecture supporting consumer products for billions of users. CCO Hu Hanying is in charge of fashion and design, and also the founder of fashion brand HANYING, who has designed fashion accessories for top European and American stars including LADY GAGA, BLACKPINK and Westlife. The core hardware team includes the former senior project and supply chain director of Xiaomi, and the former HCI lead of ByteDance Ocean Lab.

It is worth noting that 90 days after the company was founded, Nirva was selected as one of the top three best startups by the official CES2026.

In terms of appearance, the main part of the Nirva necklace is a slender, minimalist metal cylinder weighing only 7.5g, available in gold, silver and black, which can be matched with chains to form necklaces or bracelets. Lyu Wei told Hard Krypton that many products take the device itself as the visual center, such as square, round or triangular shapes. "But we found that if the device itself becomes the visual center, there will definitely be people who like it and people who don't."

Therefore, Nirva's idea is the opposite: the device itself should not be the visual center, but can integrate into different accessory styles. The main body of Nirva is very slender and can be integrated with the chain. "For example, the same silver Nirva, paired with a pearl chain, can present a relatively elegant feeling, while paired with a thick metal chain, it can present an American street style."

Source of image / The enterprise

Lyu Wei, who has been working on AI glasses products for many years, believes that glasses are indeed a smart device close to the ultimate form that can interact with people, but limited by problems such as battery life and appearance, users cannot wear it all day long in real life at present. "So the question we are thinking about today is not which hardware form is the most advanced, but at this point in time, what kind of form can really be worn by the public every day", which is also the reason why Lyu Wei makes AI accessories.

Behind the seemingly simple hardware, Lyu Wei introduced that the R&D is not easy. "One of the biggest challenges is that we hope to achieve an integrally formed jewelry-like appearance, and we insist that the product has no parting seams, and cannot be assembled in two halves like other devices. Therefore, all components need to be loaded from one side into a tube with a very small inner diameter and a radian. It is a challenge for both structural design and assembly." In addition, the metal shell also poses a great challenge to antenna design.

In terms of functions, Nirva can passively listen to the user's own words from morning to night and respond accordingly. Nirva is equipped with voiceprint recognition, which can filter out other people's voices. "So users don't need to turn the device on and off all the time, and can naturally wear it from morning to night." In addition, it can actively generate different types of cards according to the user's life content, such as moments, affirmation, mood, gratitude, etc. These contents can help users record their lives, and also help users see their emotional changes, social patterns and behavior habits in the long run.

Lyu Wei showed Hard Krypton the screenshots she used in the past two months, such as the gratitude card, "I was sick at that time, my mom prepared meals for me and took care of me, and I didn't even say thank you. Nirva reminded me to say thank you to my mom. It's a very small point but it really touched me." For example, the mood card, "One day I accidentally hurt a friend's dog, and then I felt strong self-condemnation. Nirva pushed me a psychology report to teach me how to correctly understand this problem." Daily life will be automatically organized into diaries and timelines, accompanied by a letter, and all cards can be directly shared on social media.

All of the above will be delivered to users through software. Lyu Wei analyzed that the problem of many hardware products now is that they only focus on the device itself, "But the reason why users stay in the end is not because they own a device, but because the device really enters their lives."

In Lyu Wei's view, what they really want to do is a context aware companion or agent (an AI companion that understands the context of the user's life). On the hardware form side, it can be presented in different forms of fashion accessories. "Today it may be necklaces and bracelets, and there will be more accessories of different forms in the future." In her vision, a user can own multiple Nirva devices in the future, and choose different Nirva to accompany them according to their daily outfits, scenarios and states.

Source of image / The enterprise

Nirva's user group profile is very clear: North American urban white-collar women aged 23-45, living in big cities such as New York and San Francisco, who are interested in concepts such as self-improvement, health awareness and data-driven. Lyu Wei and her colleagues have done sufficient research on this group. "For example, they are exquisite urban white-collar workers, practice yoga and pilates, buy light luxury brands, pay attention to their own lifestyle, physical and mental health, and Oura Ring can often be seen on their hands." More importantly, under the current background of the times, this group has higher demands for self-care and self-improvement.

Next, Lyu Wei said that Nirva will launch different designs, "similar to the logic of Pop Mart, we will continue to do brand IP co-branding, cooperate with fashion brands or IPs to launch chains, so that users can repurchase." In September this year, the product will be launched on a small scale to hundreds of users who placed the earliest orders, to build an early community and iterate the product based on feedback.

The following is an excerpt of the interview between Hard Krypton and Lyu Wei, founder of Nirva:

Hard Krypton: Both you and your co-founder have AI glasses backgrounds. Why did you choose the accessory form this time?

Lyu Wei: I started making glasses 10 years ago, and I have always thought that glasses are the North Star form. From the first principle, glasses are close to the eyes and ears, can replace the senses, and are the most suitable for AI to interact with people.

But precisely because I have been doing this for many years, I know that although the shipment volume of glasses is rising today, the mainstream group still cannot wear them all day long every day, which is very critical. At this point in time, the capability of large models is strong enough, and what is more lacking is products that users are willing to wear every day. Only when users wear the product can they generate data, and with data, many things can be done. So the bottleneck is not on the model side, but whether there is a beautiful, comfortable, extremely non-intrusive product that people are willing to wear all the time.

Hard Krypton: If you keep listening to the user's own voice and form a response, will users feel the pressure of being analyzed?

Lyu Wei: The keynote of Nirva is to help users pick up the beautiful or memorable things in life. When it needs to give users another perspective to look at problems, it will put it forward very gently. One of the core members of our team is specifically responsible for this, who used to be the user research and product lead of Headspace, a leading European and American mental health company with a total of nearly 100 million global users.

Psychological framework is needed behind product design. Users want to improve themselves, but in fact, when giving them feedback, they don't want to be judged. To use the popular MBTI as a metaphor, our way is "to give users very T-type content in a very F-type way", so that users can feel good while improving their self-awareness and seeing better possibilities in life.

Hard Krypton: Nirva can achieve always on, will this involve privacy issues?

Lyu Wei: This is why we insist on "only listen to yourself". We are not a meeting minutes software. We don't care about every word others say, but focus on the user's own state. Voiceprints are collected through natural conversations when online, and only listen to what you say. What the boss says, what colleagues say, and what you hear on TikTok do not represent you. Only what you say every day represents your thoughts, emotions and needs, and defines who you are.

Because it does not involve conversations with others, there are far fewer privacy issues. And users can turn off Nirva at any time with full control. In addition, we are cooperating with Orrick, one of the largest law firms in the United States, to do privacy compliance. Users can actually understand that data needs to be uploaded to the cloud for AI services. What they care more about is whether they have control - whether they can view, completely delete, and transfer the data. We give users these promises and also get certified by third-party institutions.

Hard Krypton: You attach great importance to fashion taste and development. How will this affect your marketing strategy?

Lyu Wei: Consumer electronics has its own established marketing strategies, but the fashion industry emphasizes being good at building brands. For example, we will cooperate with celebrities. If she can wear the product on important occasions, it will be very effective to create "non-replicable events" for the brand. Of course, we will choose celebrities who are exactly Nirva's target group. They must be really interested in this product and be real users, instead of paying them to wear or endorse the product.

In addition, we will also do pop-up experiences in offline high-end department stores or lifestyle brand gathering areas, because fashion accessories need to be tried on. Later, we will launch brand co-branding and designer co-branding like Pop Mart, launch new products every month and carry out large-scale cooperation every quarter, so as to keep social buzz continuous and cultivate users' habits. After buying one Nirva, users can match different chains continuously, and will have the mentality of collecting.