Aina Raises $5.5 Million to Revolutionize AI Interfaces

Aina: A New Vision for AI Interfaces

In a rapidly evolving sector where numerous startups are vying to create the next big artificial intelligence interface, Aina, an emerging company based in Bengaluru and San Francisco, is trying to stand out. While products like the Sandbar ring, Plaud's AI pin, and Pocket's notebook aim to capture your interactions, Aina is betting on a different approach with devices that not only listen to you but actively control AI agents. Meta's smart glasses and Even Realities are also exploring this market, but Aina hopes to carve out its own niche with its innovation.

The company recently announced that it raised $5.5 million in a funding round. This round was led by Redstart Labs (Info Edge India) and 360 ONE, with participation from MIXI Global Investments, Antler, and Blume Founders Fund. Among the individual investors are notable figures such as Kunal Shah, the new head of WhatsApp, as well as Razorpay co-founders Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, and Scribd founder Tikhon Bernstam.

An Inspiring Entrepreneurial Journey

Aina, previously known as Project Mirage, was founded by Apoorv Shankar. Before launching Aina, Shankar was the hardware vice president at Ultrahuman, a company specializing in smart rings. His entrepreneurial journey began with LazyCo, a startup focused on designing hardware interfaces, which was acquired by Ultrahuman. This experience allowed Shankar to develop a unique expertise in creating interactive gadgets, such as rings that can control other devices like smartphones.

Shankar left Ultrahuman to explore new opportunities in the field of AI interfaces. "I was really curious about the AI interface space," he told TechCrunch. Inspired by devices like Rabbit and Humane Pin, he saw this field as a chance to realize his vision as an engineer and product designer.

Dune: An Innovative Device

Aina's first product, named Dune, is a three-button contextual macro keyboard. This small numeric keypad executes predefined shortcuts and can control the microphone and camera during meetings, while executing scripts based on the applications used by the user. Aina has also developed two other devices: Radiance, a tabletop remote for video calls, and Shift, a one-button agentic button to trigger AI agents.

In initial tests, Dune proved to be the most popular among the three devices. This popularity led Aina to consolidate the features of the other devices into Dune to better meet user needs. The goal is to learn which tasks users actually want to automate in a real-world context.

Towards a New Product

The insights gained from testing these devices will inform the development of Aina's next product. Although details about this new device are still under wraps, the company plans to begin testing with a small group of users in the coming weeks. Shankar hinted that this new device will not be a mere context recorder but an active device designed to control and invoke AI agents.

"We have enough context in our phones and laptops, and we haven't even begun to fully exploit it," Shankar stated. Aina aims to create an action-oriented device capable of using context to help control and trigger workflows.

A Growing Market

With the increasing adoption of AI coding tools like Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex, the market for devices designed to control these agents is expanding rapidly. Recently, OpenAI launched a custom numeric keypad for Codex, made in collaboration with Work Louder. Other companies, such as Rabbit R1 and Qualcomm, are also exploring devices to interact with AI.

While the market has yet to designate a winning format—be it a ring, pin, glasses, numeric keypad, or speaker—many companies continue to innovate and raise funds to address a crucial question: what does controlling AI really look like?