Tech company Nothing raises $200m to become latest unicorn

UK-based technology company Nothing has raised $200 million in funding, valuing the company at $1.3 billion, as it focuses on building next-generation AI-enabled devices.

The valuation makes the smartphone maker Europe’s newest unicorn.

The Series C funding round was led by Tiger Global, with some Irish backing. Venture capital firm Tapestry, an Irish-led fund and early investor in Nothing, also participated in the round, with Avolon founder Dómhnal Slattery also joining the round.

Existing investors Highland Europe, GV, EQT, Latitude and I2BF, also backed the latest round, with new strategic investment coming from Nikhil Kamath and Qualcomm Ventures.

The days when the budget was a shared national event in Ireland are over

It’s budget day and the perils of ‘buy now, pay later’

Has social media finally peaked? The rise of AI and decline of screen time

Getting into debt over a takeaway: The risks and benefits of buy-now, pay-later

Nothing said the valuation was a milestone that marked the start of its plan to build an AI-native platform.

“For AI to reach its full potential, consumer hardware must reinvent itself alongside it. This is the opportunity we see for Nothing. We see a future where operating systems are significantly different from the ones today. Each system will know its user deeply, and be hyper-personalised to each individual,” co-founder Carl Pei said. “Unlike today’s one-size-fits-all solution, a billion different operating systems will be rendered for a billion different people.”

While Mr Pei predicted the smartphone will remain the only device shipping at billion-unit scale each year in the near term, he said he expects a new class of AI native devices to emerge. Nothing plans to ship its first devices next year, extending to audio products and smart watches initially, with the potential to carry its OS into smart glasses, humanoid robots, EVs and other devices.

Nothing has grown quickly since its launch four years ago, shipping millions of devices and reaching more than $1 billion in total sales.

Tapestry was one of its early backers, investing in Nothing’s seed round in 2020. Among its other portfolio companies are drone delivery company Manna and Belfast-based cloud security company Cloudsmith.

“Many of our portfolio companies are tackling tech’s incumbents head-on – whether it’s Apple’s iPhone, Google’s drones, or Amazon’s infrastructure,” Tapestry’s Patrick Murphy said. “We continue to back founders with this level of ambition and a refusal to accept the world as it stands.”