Pocket collects an $11 million bet on the growing demand for AI-based note-taking devices

Unlike AI tools like Rabbit or Humane, companies that make custom tools for recording and transcribing meetings have already seen some interest. The market is huge – although a bit restricted, as smartphones work well for such tasks when paired with note-taking apps – and startups like Plaud, Mobvoi, Anker, Viaim, and Vibe I jumped to take advantage.

In this crowded market, Y Combinator-backed Pocket believes it can win thanks to its design, packaging and price. The company sells a $129 credit card-shaped disk that sticks to the back of your phone and promises unlimited recordings, transcriptions, and to-do items, with no subscription required.

The startup says it has sold more than 130,000 units since launching last year, and that momentum has now helped it secure $11 million in funding from Accel, Y Combinator, and ElevenLabs CEO and co-founder Matej Staniszewski.

The basic idea of ​​Pocket isn’t new: You stick the disk into the back of your phone, turn on the recording during a meeting, and it will record and transcribe your conversations.

Users can then ask the companion phone app to generate meeting summaries, ask the AI ​​assistant questions about the meetings, create mind maps, and convert text into different templates.

While the basic version comes free with the disc, the company sells a $200 per year plan to unlock unlimited AI summaries, AI Assistant queries, daily features, and file attachments.

“You can record on the go, offline, and in the field, and that’s exactly how lawyers, salespeople, doctors, real estate agents, construction workers, and students use Pocket today,” said Cecilia Wang, Accel partner. “Not only are people attending rather than shifting focus to taking notes, but more information and ideas are being captured than ever before, which would otherwise have been lost,” Wang said. “Over time, this accumulation of ideas is of real value: one central place where your thoughts, conversations, and ideas live, rather than being scattered and lost.”

Pocket was founded by Akshay Narisetti, who was one of the founding members of note-taking startup Omi; and Gabriel Demovsky, who previously founded a blockchain document management startup.

“We thought every meeting blogging tool was designed for online conversations, but there wasn’t anything geared toward real-life talk,” Narisetti told TechCrunch. “AI really needs a lot of context to work best for us, and a lot of that context exists offline.”

For its enterprise customers, Pocket offers custom workflow management, webhook support, and integration with apps like Google Calendar, OneDrive, Google Drive, Obsidian, Cloud, and Cursor. In addition, there is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to connect its AI assistant to other databases.

Like other meeting note takers, Pocket wants to help people automate tasks like crafting emails, updating CRMs, and creating action items based on meetings. The company is quickly shipping software to enable these integrations.

There’s no doubt that devices like Pocket face competition from software players like Granola, Zoom, Fireflies, Otter, and Read AI. However, hardware-first companies like Plaud are on the right track To generate annual revenue of $100 million through software sales,We also build enterprise capabilities side by side Desktop applications for digital meetings.