Pocket's popular AI notetaker launched 8 months ago. Revenue is soaring, but can it last?

Akshay Narisetti (left) and Gabriel Dymowski, the cofounders of Pocket. Pocket Pocket is an AI notetaker hardware startup that went through Y Combinator this year. It told Business Insider it reached a $100 million run rate eight months after launching its product. The tech graveyard is already littered with failed AI devices, but Pocket hopes it can endure. AI hardware has had more misses than hits. Pocket wants to change that. The AI notetaker hardware startup says it has reached a $100 million run rate eight months after launching. While the tech graveyard is already littered with failed AI devices, Pocket is betting its thin recorder, which snaps onto the back of smartphones and transcribes conversations, is not just a fad. "It's only going to go up from here," cofounder and CEO Akshay Narisetti told Business Insider. "We have so much money coming in from subscriptions." Run rate is a popular way for young startups to describe growth, but it is not the same as actually generating $100 million in revenue over the previous 12 months. Instead, it takes a company's current revenue pace and projects it over a full year. Narisetti said Pocket is growing roughly 50% a month and believes it could reach a $1 billion run within two years. He said the company has only 12 employees and has sold more than 200,000 devices. Pocket was part of this year's Y Combinator accelerator class. Its two cofounders, Narisetti and Gabriel Dymowski, first met at The Residency, a San Francisco hacker house backed by Sam Altman. They initially built an app for taking meeting notes, but later found that users, such as busy doctors and salespeople, preferred dedicated hardware so they could seamlessly record back-to-back appointments and meetings. "Every single time they tried to unlock their phone, they could rather press a simple button," Narisetti said. After trying glasses and pendants, some similar to the $700 pin that Humane AI released in 2024 and discontinued after poor reviews and sales last year, Pocket landed on a credit card-sized device costing as little as $129. A basic subscription is free, while premium plans offering more advanced AI models start at $16.59 a month. Criticism in Silicon Valley Pocket and other AI notetakers have become so popular that they have led to criticism that people no longer ask for permission to record every conversation in Silicon Valley Narisetti argued that a visible device is preferable to a covert recording on a phone because the Pocket has to be placed on a desk and requires pressing a button to start recording. He contrasted that with always-on wearable devices, which he said people "inherently hated" because they are constantly listening. Pocket faces plenty of competition. Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other major platforms increasingly offer AI-powered note-taking, while startups such as Granola compete for users seeking automated meeting notes. OpenAI is planning to release a much-anticipated device as early as next year, designed by former Apple legend Johnny Ive. Narisetti believes Pocket's advantage lies in offline conversations, where no single platform automatically controls the experience. A basic subscription is free, while premium plans offering more advanced AI models start at $16.59 a month. Pocket Pocket says most growth has come from direct-to-consumer sales, referrals, and word of mouth. Amazon represents less than 5% to 10% of revenue, Narisetti said, and roughly 85% of its business still comes from the US. The company plans to expand into retail and international markets and move beyond conversation notes into personal note-taking and dictation. In the first half of 2026, global venture funding in physical AI totaled $47.4 billion across 521 deals, according to new Crunchbase data. That's a fourfold increase compared to the second half of 2025, when physical AI startups raised $12 billion across 470 deals. Pocket last raised $11 million of venture funding in a deal led by Accel in June, according to Pitchbook data. Other backers include Y Combinator and Guillermo Rauch, cofounder and CEO of Vercel. Narisetti declined to put a new valuation on the company, but said Pocket prefers raising based on where the business is today rather than pricing in years of expected AI-driven growth. "We don't like to grow into valuations," he said. Read the original article on Business Insider

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