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<ul><li>The startup closed its pre-seed round at a total of $1.3 million. </li><li>Tesla’s investor Tim Draper was also an early participant in the company’s pre-seed funding round. </li><li>The funds will be utilised to execute the go-to-market strategy of the company’s first ‘upliance’- delishUp.</li></ul>Bengaluru-based consumer hardware startup Up, previously known as React Labs, has raised $500,000 from Rainmatter led by <keyword id="759851" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="zerodha" source="Orion">Zerodha</keyword> founder <keyword id="1430802" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="nithin-kamath" source="Orion">Nithin Kamath</keyword>, in a pre-seed funding round. It raised a total of $1.3 million in the pre-seed funding round. Apart from Kamath, the startup received investments from co-founders of Ather Energy, Unacademy and the Stanford Angels &amp; Entrepreneurs India. Tesla’s investor Tim Draper was also an early participant in the company’s pre-seed funding round. Founded by Mahek Mody and Mohit Sharma, the startup has designed a smart ‘upliance’, delishUp. The device features a touch screen with unlimited in-built guided recipes, coupled with a jar which heats and cooks, and offers controlled chopping, stirring and other culinary functions. The recently raised funds will be utilized to execute the go-to-market strategy of its Made in India device, delishUp. The startup aims to make cooking healthy, easy and accessible for millennials and Gen-Z. “Everyone knows the best way to manage your health is to eat home cooked food, and with this new funding we are looking forward to taking delishUp to consumers across the country. Most other services available in the market focus on the exercise or ‘calories out’ options, but nearly none of them are offering users the superpower to take control of ‘calories in’,” said Mahek Mody, co-founder and CEO at Up. The device has been tested in over 250 Indian homes and kitchens and will begin deliveries in December this year. Consumers from the brand’s beta testing program also turned into mini-angel investors, the company said. With this device, the company claims that people with no experience in the kitchen can also cook without any hassle. The company says that the recipes on the ‘upliance’ have been designed in-house, taking into account ingredients that are easily available and their nutrition. It also has the macros and calories calculated for all meals. The connected features offer unlimited recipes, and added functions like grocery shopping, menu planning and more. “The next generation of smart and connected innovation will be designed to elevate the quality of our domestic lives. The next generation of smart and connected devices for the world will be built in countries like India and by the upcoming generation of hardware startups,” said <keyword id="11216628" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="siri-srinivas" source="Orion">Siri Srinivas</keyword>, principal investor, <keyword id="2399647" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="draper-associates" source="Orion">Draper Associates</keyword>. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/rocket-startup-astra-lays-off-16-of-its-workforce/articleshow/95429015.cms">Rocket startup Astra lays off 16% of its workforce</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/tata-motors-shares-tank-4-8-on-q2-miss-jlrs-recovery-delays/articleshow/95427722.cms">Tata Motors shares tank 4.8% on Q2 miss, JLR’s recovery delays</a>

Tesla investor, Zerodha founder invest in a smart ‘upliance’ that can chop, stir and cook

Earlier this week, another product contending for the future of AI companionship made its debut: an eavesdropping necklace called Friend. The device was introduced in a glossy, A24-style promotional video in which fresh-faced Zoomers speak to an AI pendant that provides emotional support, commentary, and playful jabs in the form of canned text messages. "This show is completely underrated," it texts a woman while she's watching a show and eating falafel on her lunch break. Then it texts, "How's the falafel?" The woman is seemingly heartened by this. "It's dank," she tells her necklace, "I could eat one of these every day."The internet, however, has found Friend to be less than dank.Unlike Siri, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-healthcare-one-medical-billion-loss-cost-cutting-profitability-2024-7">Alexa</a>, and their brethren, Friend is not an ask-and-tell robot assistant. Instead, the $99 device aspires to take the place of human companionship, capitalizing on a culture in which nearly 10 percent of Americans say they have no close friends. With Friend, you're never alone — which, depending on how much you value solitude and privacy, is either extremely comforting or extremely creepy.If any of this sounds bleak or dystopian, then you'll understand the vitriolic reactions to the product across the internet. A sampling from X: "Friend strikes me as a product for losers, which is a totally valid market," and "One of the more depressing things I've ever seen…Do whatever the opposite of this is." Many compared Friend to a "Black Mirror" episode.The online commentary grew only more heated when Friend's founder, a 21-year-old Harvard dropout named Avi Schiffmann, revealed that he spent $1.8 million of Friend's $2.5 million funding to buy the website domain "Friend.com.""People think it's outrageous that I would buy a domain like that, but this is the point of VC money," Schiffmann told me in an interview. (He is not the first entrepreneur to purchase an expensive domain — Elon Musk, Schiffmann was quick to point out, spent some $11 million to acquire Tesla.com.) Friend's investors include Caffeinated Capital's Raymond Tonsing, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/perplexity-ai-forbes-wired-explained-2024-6">Perplexity AI</a> CEO Aravind Srinivas, and Morning Brew cofounder Austin Rief. "People think my investors hate me, but they could not love me any more," he said.Still, Schiffmann admits that the online reaction to Friend is not what he expected. "I honestly think it's because the video was too good," he said."That, maybe, was my biggest mistake. There hasn't been a video this high quality about AI companionship since 'Her,'" — the Oscar-winning 2013 film in which Scarlett Johansson plays an AI voice assistant so transfixing Joaquin Phoenix's human character falls in love with her.Schiffmann's original vision for an AI hardware device was a pendant that would act as a more standard-fare AI assistant called Tab — he once described it as a "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/12/3/avi-schiffmann-wearable-ai/">wearable mom</a>." But after spending a lonely night in Tokyo, he began considering a more intimate version, a "friend" that could offer camaraderie and emotional support. "A good friend that sends you a text like 'Good luck on the interview' is more productive than reminding you that you have a meeting in five minutes," he said.A venture-funded AI friendship necklace is something of a hard pivot for Schiffmann. In 2020, when he was 17, he built one of the first COVID-tracking websites. Anthony Fauci presented him with a Webby Person of the Year award. He went on to build a tool that tracked Black Lives Matter protesters and a website that helped refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine find people offering spare rooms and couches around the world. But Schiffmann sees a throughline in all these projects: "These are all really just big art projects to me," he said. "I haven't been able to come up with a stronger intrinsic [reason] why it's worth doing anything like this at all. It's just something to do and I'm bored. But maybe I've just read too much Camus.""I'm building friends for myself, but I also have a ton of friends," he added. "I don't think it's a complete substitution. If one of your five close friends is an AI, it's a good thing, especially if you fear judgment from other people. It can fill in gaps when you're traveling and it's late at night and you want to talk to someone."Of the many AI hardware devices that launched in recent months, such as Humane's AI pin, Meta's smart glasses, and Rabbit's AI-powered R1, Friend is the most personal contender. Not only does it aspire to be a close confidante, but it's privy to all its users' conversations. As in, it never stops listening. The incessant eavesdropping that people fear when it comes to devices like Siri and Alexa, is a selling point to allay Friends' users who fear being alone. Friend needs to have access to every aspect of your life in order to work, says Schiffmann. "You wouldn't put headphones over your dog," he said. "It makes it feel like it's actually there with you. It's nice to be with a sentient entity." Schiffmann is not the only tech founder building an AI companion in the form of a pendant. In fact, on the day Friend launched, a competing AI hardware founder named Nik Shevchenko released <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/kodjima33/status/1818452878018646369">a diss track</a> — as any self-respecting 23-year-old AI hardware founder would do — insinuating that Schiffmann stole his idea. Shevchenko is also building an open-source competitor AI pendant, which he wears in his rap video, that looks a lot like Friend's. It is, in what seems to be more than a coincidence, also named Friend. "For those who don't know / I built Friend / renamed your Tab/ jacked my style," Shevchenko raps.When I asked Schiffmann about Shevchenko's claims, Schiffmann told me it was the opposite: Shevchenko had copied him. (It would not be the first time that Shevchenko built an open source competitor that closely resembled another AI hardware device. In March, the AI pin company Humane <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/kodjima33/status/1764472814353183199">sent Shevchenko a cease and desist</a> after he launched a similar device called Whomane.) "There are a lot of people building open source competitors," said Schiffmann. "[Shevchenko] is the most annoying one.""Maybe I am annoying," Shevchenko said when I reached him for comment. But he disagreed with at least some of Schiffmann's claims. He actually had been copying another AI companion pendant, he said. "The project that we built was indeed fascinated by another project but it was not Avi's Tab. It was an open-source wearable called Adeus." There are nearly as many upstart AI companion pendant necklaces, it seems, as there are Taylor Swift friendship bracelets.At least from the world's initial reaction to it, Friend appears to be a long way from product/market fit in that people do not want this product.. Schiffmann disagrees. "People underlyingly want this," he told me. As for Friend's online detractors, they are just "being Twitter tech people and, like, yappin'," he said.Schiffmann is unbothered by the vitriol, he says. When it comes to creating Friend, "every decision I made was guided by personal vibes.""I'm just chilling at my house smoking cigarettes and continuing to work," he continued. Schiffmann says he has big plans for Friend. "I fully plan on winning the industry," he said. "If this is what I can do with 2.5 million dollars, wait till you see what I can do with $100 million."<a target="_blank" rel="" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/zo-bernard">Zoë Bernard</a> is a feature writer based in Los Angeles. She writes about technology, crime, and culture. Formerly, she covered technology for The Information and Business Insider.

Meet the 21-year-old Harvard dropout behind Friend, the creepy new AI necklace 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Some of <keyword id="11897862" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="elon-musk" source="Orion">Elon Musk</keyword>'s fans and critics took to <keyword id="11892744" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="twitter" source="Orion">Twitter</keyword> over <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">news</keyword> he quietly fathered a set of twins.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-shivon-zilis-secret-twins-neuralink-tesla">Insider first reported on Wednesday</a> that a <keyword id="12199118" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="neuralink" source="Orion">Neuralink</keyword> executive had given birth to Musk's twins in November.</li></ul>After it was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-shivon-zilis-secret-twins-neuralink-tesla">revealed</a> Elon Musk had quietly fathered a set of twins with an executive of one of his companies, fans and critics of the billionaire took to social media.The news appeared to gather some support from Republican lawmakers and <keyword id="11900744" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="tesla" source="Orion">Tesla</keyword> superfans. Others made jokes about Musk's large family, and some voiced concern about what the CEO's behavior could mean for female employees."Big Short" investor Michael Burry appeared to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/big-short-investor-jab-elon-musk-twins-with-neuralink-executive-2022-7">diss</a> Musk's response to the news.Others made jokes."$200 billion seems like a massive fortune until you realize that each of <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk">@elonmusk</a>'s 10 billion children will only inherit $20," @WholeMarsBlog, a EV news account that often promotes Musk, tweeted in a reference to Musk's networth which is currently valued at $214 billion, according to the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/elon-r-musk/?sref=LspfQlRv">Bloomberg Billionaire's Index.</a>The news of Musk's relationship with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis comes after <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-paid-250000-to-a-flight-attendant-who-accused-elon-musk-of-sexual-misconduct-2022-5">Insider reported</a> in May that SpaceX paid a company flight attendant $250,000 to stay quiet after she alleged that Musk exposed himself and propositioned her for sex, even offering to buy her a horse in exchange.In a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twins-children-underpopulation-crisis-birth-rate-shivon-zilis-2022-7">response</a> to the Insider report on Twitter, Musk appeared unfazed by the news.Several people compared Musk to Nick Cannon. The rapper and TV host has <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-moms/pictures/nick-cannons-family-meet-his-children-their-mothers/">seven children</a> with five different mothers. Cannon responded to a Musk tweet about, telling the CEO that he was "Right there with you my Brother!"While some made jokes about Musk's penchant for fathering children, others struck a more serious note."More confirmation of a totally normal and healthy workplace for women," Lindsey Boylan, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/nyregion/cuomo-lindsey-boylan-harassment.html">former aide to Governor Andrew Cuomo</a>, tweeted. She was the first woman to speak out against Cuomo in the sexual harassment scandal which ultimately ended in his resignation.Some users compared Musk's behavior to Bill Gates. Last year, the Microsoft founder <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/17/bill-gates-affair-investigation/#:~:text=SEATTLE%20%E2%80%94%20Bill%20Gates%20acknowledged%20through,from%20the%20board%20last%20year.">resigned</a> from the company's board following an investigation in an extramarital affair with a Microsoft employee.Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin criticized the media for reporting off of court records.Some users criticized Musk's parenting style. In the past, Musk has <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/03/grimes-cover-story-on-music-and-mars">said</a> he doesn't have much involvement in his children's lives until they get older.Meanwhile, some Tesla superfans praised Musk for taking his <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-on-demographics-population-ageing-2021-12">concerns</a> related to declining birth rates so seriously.Several Republican politicians appeared to praise Musk as well.Several major CEOs have been ousted for engaging in relationships with subordinates. In 2019, McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mcdonald-s-corp-ceo/mcdonalds-ousts-ceo-over-consensual-relationship-with-employee-idUSKBN1XD0KI">dismissed</a> after it was revealed he'd had a consensual relationship with an employee. Similarly, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/technology/intel-ceo-resigns-consensual-relationship.html">resigned</a> in 2018 over a consensual relationship with a staffer.

News of Elon Musk's twins with top executive at one of his companies elicits a mix of jokes, support, and criticism on social media

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div></div>Amazon keeps cutting grocery prices in an attempt to take down competitors like Wal-Mart, Target, and K-Mart.
The company believes it can draw in more customers by becoming a go-to for household items, groceries, and pet supplies, reports <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/20/amazon-cutting-grocery-prices-profits">Siri Srinivas at The Guardian</a>.
If the strategy works, it could lead to customers who buy more frequently than those seeking electronics or furniture on the e-commerce site. 
Amazon has been aggressively investing in its grocery category. One person recently wrote about their experience <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/i-buy-everything-but-haircuts-on-amazon-prime-2014-11">buying everything</a> on Amazon Prime, and the business could be lucrative as aging Baby Boomers become more hesitant to leave the house. 
But analysts and shareholders' patience is wearing thin.
Amazon reported an operating loss of $437 million last quarter, and the share price is down 12% in the past year. 
The Guardian <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/20/amazon-cutting-grocery-prices-profits">also notes</a> that Amazon's price-cutting could have negative consequences for the industry. 
"This pricing arms race can only result in mutual capitalist destruction," Srinivas writes, citing experts. "Wal-Mart will likely be unable to keep up."Wal-Mart is also facing pressure from dollar stores. 
Dollar Tree is in the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/family-dollar-acquisition-impact-2014-7">process of buying Family Dollar</a>, meaning the company will have a total of 13,000 stores. 
This gives Dollar Tree more leverage to negotiate with suppliers for lower prices. 
But Wal-Mart isn't going down without a fight.
CEO Doug McMillon <a href="http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2014/10/15/walmart-ceo-outlines-growth-strategy-at-annual-meeting-for-the-investment-community">recently told investors</a> that the brand has a renewed focus on offering the cheapest products. 
"Price matters to our customers and it always will," McMillon said. "As a company, being a low cost operator is in our DNA. This will never change and we will be the price leader, across a broad assortment, everywhere we operate."Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.

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Tesla investor, Zerodha founder invest in a smart ‘upliance’ that can chop, stir and cook

Vaamanaa Sethi

Meet the 21-year-old Harvard dropout behind Friend, the creepy new AI necklace

Zoë Bernard

News of Elon Musk's twins with top executive at one of his companies elicits a mix of jokes, support, and criticism on social media

Grace Kay

Amazon Has A Risky Grocery Strategy To Take Down Wal-Mart

Ashley Lutz

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