Smartphone startup Nothing introduced in the present day that it closed its Collection C spherical of $200 million, which was led by the funding agency Tiger World. With this spherical, the buyer electronics firm is now valued at $1.3 billion.

Different traders within the spherical included current backers comparable to enterprise outfits GV, Highland Europe, EQT, Latitude, I2BF, and Tapestry. The corporate, based by Carl Pei — who beforehand co-founded Chinese language smartphone maker OnePlus, recognized for high-performance units at aggressive costs — additionally obtained new strategic backing from Nikhil Kamath and Qualcomm Ventures. The brand new funding takes Nothing’s complete funding to over $450 million.

“Carl and the crew at Nothing are reimagining {hardware} and software program with an AI overlay to place their merchandise for the subsequent period of private expertise. We’re excited to associate with this distinctive crew as they pioneer AI-native experiences,” stated Matt Watcher, a associate at Tiger World, in an announcement to TechCrunch.

The corporate stated it can quickly open up one other neighborhood funding spherical. In earlier neighborhood rounds the corporate raised $11.5 million in complete.

The corporate has wager on design differentiation to date, and it has served the startup properly. Nothing says it clocked in over $1 billion in complete gross sales earlier this yr. An early investor within the startup informed TechCrunch that they’re pleased with the corporate’s progress trajectory and street to profitability.

The startup stated that up up to now, it has hung out constructing a provide chain and infrastructure to launch a product inside months and ship it worldwide. Notably, its lately launched Cellphone (3) — which showcases the corporate’s signature clear design aesthetic and distinctive consumer interface — was solely its second handset to obtain basic distribution within the U.S.

Nothing has lower than 1% market share globally, however in India, its greatest market, it has managed to seize 2% share, in keeping with analytics agency IDC. The corporate has shipped 5.1 million items so far, with the corporate transport over one million items simply in Q2 2025. IDC stated its international enlargement has been sluggish as 80% of its items are nonetheless offered in Asia.

Pei has stated that he desires to focus on his model in the direction of the subsequent technology of customers who would possibly search alternate options past incumbents.

“The best way we’ve differentiated our model and differentiated our merchandise is actually resonating with our group of customers. We’re concentrating on the subsequent technology. They’re fascinated about tech. They’re fascinated about creativity and design, and we actually discovered resonance amongst that client group,” he informed TechCrunch in the course of the Cellphone (3)’s launch in July.

Highland Europe associate Tony Zappalà, who’s an current investor within the firm, stated that the corporate has delivered on its guarantees and has room to develop on this big trade. He stated that Nothing is now a acknowledged title within the trade, which has its personal benefits when it comes to attracting expertise and constructing provide chain relationships.

AI imaginative and prescient

The corporate desires to construct an working system with AI and personalization options that may lengthen past smartphones. At present, we’ve got solely seen just a few glimpses of AI within the working system with options like Important Search, a sensible search perform that helps customers discover info throughout their gadget. The startup has employed Sélim Benayat, a former govt from Linktree and founding father of Bento (a platform that creates customized touchdown pages for social media profiles), to steer its AI providers efforts.

Zappalà stated that the problem in constructing such an working system is each a buyer expertise and a belief problem.

“I feel the problem of constructing an efficient AI-first expertise will not be distinctive to Nothing. That is greater than a technical problem; AI options want to achieve a stage the place customers should not double-checking the output,” he stated.

Corporations like Apple have struggled to combine AI options successfully into their working methods. For Nothing, the issue is discovering the correct steadiness between newness and helpfulness whereas executing AI options.

Pei believes that smartphones stay one of the best ways to ship AI, and they are going to be “the dominant kind issue for all client AI functions” for not less than three to 5 years, he stated in the course of the dialog with TechCrunch in July.

With this fundraising announcement, the corporate stated it plans to launch an AI-first gadget subsequent yr. Nonetheless, there haven’t been many success tales within the AI {hardware} house. AI {hardware} startup Humane was offered to HP after combating its AI Pin gadget, and AI assistant firm Rabbit has has been working to enhance its R1 gadget, releasing a new software program replace lately after the corporate wasn’t happy with the primary iteration.