The race to create the next AI interface is full of startups. The Sandbar ring, of Plaudius AI pin and desktop notebook and Pocket credit card sized pucks all competing to catch what you say and do. Bee and friend and choose the wearable route Meta Ray bans and Even Realities they are betting on smart glasses. Now, a startup based in Bengaluru and San Francisco, Always (mirror in Hindi) is trying to make its mark in this crowded field of human-computer interface devices.
The company today announced that it has raised $5.5 million in a round led by Redstart Labs (Infoedge, India) and 360 ONE, with participation from MIXI Global Investments, Antler and Blume Founders Fund.
The round also attracted individual investors including newly appointed WhatsApp chief Kunal Shah, Razorpay co-founders Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar and Scribd founder Tikhon Bernstam.
Aina, formerly known as Project Mirage, was founded by Apoorv Shankar, former VP of Hardware at smart ring maker Ultrahuman. Before that, Shankar ran LazyCo, a hardware interface design startup that makes gadgets, including a ring, that lets users control other devices like smartphones. Ultrahuman then got LazyCo and brought Shankar home before striking out on his own again.
“I left Ultrahuman last year because I was very interested in the AI interfaces space,” Shankar told TechCrunch. “Devices like the Rabbit and the Humane Pin had been launched, and I had my share of disappointments with them. However, I was excited to see that interfaces were now a thing. As an engineer turned product designer, it was the hottest thing I could have imagined building myself.”
The startup’s first product Dunea three-button, context-aware “macro” keyboard—essentially a small keyboard that executes predefined shortcuts—can control the microphone and camera in a meeting and run shortcuts or scripts based on the program users are viewing.
Aina has developed two more devices: Radiance, a desktop remote control for video calls with volume and microphone, camera, AI notetaker, voice modulation and meeting join buttons; and Shift, a one-touch “agent” key – press once and it launches an AI agent to perform a repetitive task – which connects to your phone.
But during initial testing, Aina found that the Dune was the most popular of the three and could combine the features of the other two devices into a keyboard. It was this signal from users that the company decided to ship Dune first. In nature, it wants to learn what tasks users actually want to automate.
Aina said lessons learned from all three devices will be incorporated into its next product. The company has yet to reveal details of its new device, but plans to begin testing with a small group of select users in the coming weeks.
Shankar hinted that the new device won’t be a passive “context capture” gadget — an always-listening bell or a Plaud-style meeting recorder that just records what’s going on around you — but a device built to command and call agents.
“I think you have enough context, you have it on your phone and laptop all the time, and we haven’t even begun to make good use of it. We’re building an action-oriented device that will use context to help you control and launch workflows,” he said.
As more developers and knowledge workers adopt AI coding tools like Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex, there is a steady increase in hardware built specifically to control and run these agents. Just this week, OpenAI released a custom keyboard for Codex developed with Work Louder. There are many other options as well keyboard manufacturers for DIY enthusiasts build your own macro controllers.
There are also reports that OpenAI is developing a smart speaker with a built-in AI assistant, and the Rabbit R1 is positioning itself as another device to launch AI agents. Qualcomm, meanwhile, said it is testing with more than 40 devices to interact with AI. There’s no clear winner yet in terms of form factor — ring, pin, glasses, keyboard or speaker — but expect a wave of new hardware bets and funding rounds to answer the same question: What does controlling AI actually look like?
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