Cal AI’s 19-year-old founder just raised $10M for his new AI startup

Zach Yadegari, the 19-year-old co-founder of Cal AI, has launched Persona, a new AI agent startup, and has already secured $10 million in funding. Vine Ventures led the round, with additional investments from Cory Levy of Z Fellows and Collective Global. Cal AI was acquired by MyFitnessPal for an undisclosed sum in March, following its rapid growth in the app store rankings.

The acquisition was significant enough to prompt the sale of Cal AI by Yadegari and his co-founders, who had already accumulated $30 million in annual revenue within two years of its inception. Initially, Yadegari and his co-founders remained with MyFitnessPal, but he left in June to focus on his new venture. Persona is a personal AI assistant with a unique hardware component, a $179 wearable band, that will be available soon.

The band aims to offer privacy-focused AI services, with no ambient listening, encrypted data transmission and storage, and user data deletion capabilities. Persona's device differs from other wearables like Amazon's Bee, as it will not constantly listen or record. The assistant will run AI models in the cloud, ensuring user privacy and security.

Persona's business model includes ads for shopping research, but it promises unbiased recommendations, as the assistant won't know which items are sponsored. The wearable band is expected to launch in December, with a functional app currently in development. Persona has already attracted a few thousand beta users in its free beta version, available via iMessage text messages.

The assistant can perform various tasks, such as ordering food, booking rides, taking notes, and answering questions. In the future, Yadegari envisions Persona becoming even more proactive, offering help and solving problems before users explicitly recognize them.