Carl Pei secures $7 Million for upcoming venture, plans to setup office in London


A couple of months back, Carl Pei, who co-founded OnePlus along with Pete Lau, left the company after seven years. Carl Pei, who played an instrumental role in shaping up OnePlus has recently secured $7 million (approx Rs. 52 crores) in a Seed funding round from a list of high-profile investors for his new hardware venture.

The list of investors includes:

  •  Tony Fadell – Principal at Future Shape and inventor of the iPod
  • Casey Neistat – YouTuber
  • Kevin Lin – Co-founder of Twitch
  • Steve Huffman – Chief executive of Reddit
  • Liam Casey – Founder and chief executive of PCH
  • Paddy Cosgrave – Founder of Web Summit
  • Josh Buckley – Chief executive of Product Hunt

Also, a group of former and current Truecaller employees, Kim Fai Kok, Nick Dahl, and Zakaria Hersi, participated in the round.

Carl Pei remains tight-lipped regarding what his venture about, but the report says it will be based on audio-related hardware. With the funding, Pei plans to set up an office in London and Bangalore, hire talent and fund R&D.

“I am deeply grateful and tremendously excited to have friends of this caliber supporting us in building what’s next,” Pei said in a statement.“We plan on moving aggressively against our vision, and can’t wait to see how the market will react.”

According to Carl Pei, this new company currently has less than ten people and is actively hiring in London and Bangalore. He also revealed that his venture will be London-headquartered, considering its place, talent availability, and other factors.

Source 1, 2