At 19, founder raises $11 million for Ghost, maker of a $3,499 computer for personal AI
Ghost announced Monday its official emergence from stealth and an $11 billion seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Zain Javaid, a 19-year-old entrepreneur, founded Ghost, a company developing a computer specifically for personal AI agents. After finding personal AI fascinating following the release of ChatGPT in 2022, Javaid decided to start Ghost, which recently emerged from stealth and secured an $11 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Other investors include Abstract, Audacious Ventures, SV Angel, and Nova. Javaid's team includes Nicholas Chua, Yifei Chen, and Gautam Sharda, all 19-23 years old. Ghost's first product, Core, is a $3,499 computer designed to run AI agents for personal use. Core boasts an Nvidia RTX Pro 4000 SFF Blackwell GPU, bundled into the price, and comes with preinstalled models and the ability to install additional models from Hugging Face or load users' own trained models.
Core's hardware and software are tailored for AI agents, with models already installed, while the Mac Mini is a general-purpose computer. Core's main selling point is that it centralizes a person's data, runs locally, and encrypts personal information, with users controlling the autonomy of their agents. The device also includes a firewall to prevent unauthorized data exfiltration.
Javaid believes Core is not in competition with established tech companies and focuses on building a product people love, as opposed to merely offering hardware.
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