- Era raised $11 million to build a software platform that provides 130+ LLMs to AI gadget makers.
- The startup was founded by ex-Humane and HP veterans aiming to replace the app-layer experience.
- Humane sold to HP for $116 million while Rabbit has struggled to find product-market fit—leaving the field open for a platform play.
Era Computer wants to be the Android of AI hardware, if Android had shown up after watching iOS get kicked around for a year. The startup announced a $9 million seed round led by Abstract Ventures and BoxGroup, bringing its total raised to $11 million after a previous $2 million pre-seed from Topology Ventures and Betaworks. Individual investors include Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, iPhone keyboard creator Ken Kocienda, and ex-Rabbit CPO ShaoBoZ.
The San Francisco-based company was founded last year by CEO Liz Dorman, CTO Alex Ollman, and CPO Megan Gole. Dorman and Ollman both worked on AI orchestration at Humane before the AI Pin maker sold to HP for $116 million. Gole came from Sutter Hill Ventures, where she worked on Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s secretive io project. They know the hardware space, and they’ve seen what doesn’t work.
“I think one of the incredible things that we can do with these AI models today is that you can replace that app layer,” said Dorman. “So what we’re building is the intelligence layer to allow anyone to create these types of intelligent objects, intelligent devices.”
Why the AI Gadget Market Needs Era—Not Another Pin
Era isn’t building its own hardware. Instead, it wants to be the software layer underneath everyone else’s gadgets—providing access to over 130 LLMs from more than 14 providers, handling voice creation, multimodal inputs, and inference orchestration. The pitch is that hardware makers shouldn’t have to negotiate API deals with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google just to make a pair of smart glasses. Era handles the model routing, the latency optimization, and the real-world constraint management—like connectivity in subway tunnels.
“The startup’s orchestration platform stands out because of its dynamic routing across models and managing real-world constraints like connectivity,” said Casey Caruso, founder at Topology Ventures and an Era investor. Translation: the platform can switch between cheap models for simple queries and expensive ones for hard problems, while keeping the whole thing running when the Wi-Fi drops.
The timing is either perfect or desperate, depending on how you feel about the AI gadget category. Humane burned through hundreds of millions before selling at a fraction of its peak valuation. Rabbit’s R1 launched to mixed reviews and has stayed mostly silent. The sector needs a proof point that isn’t another hardware startup selling vaporware wrapped in aluminum.
The Platform Bet and the Cambrian Explosion Problem
Era’s bet is that the AI hardware market will fragment rather than consolidate. Instead of everyone buying the same expensive pair of smart glasses, users might want specialized devices—a health tracker disguised as jewelry, a home speaker that actually understands context, a souvenir that tells you facts about France. The company held a showcase in New York earlier this month where artists demonstrated exactly that kind of experimentation: a phone-like device that checks your stocks and tells you if today is the day you can quit your job, or a gadget that tells you about air quality.
“You can imagine this intelligence layer going to many different types of hardware,” Dorman said. “We’re gonna have a Cambrian explosion of what’s possible, and this is because tech is commoditized.” The company plans to make its platform available to open-source developers and the maker community—smart, since hardware startups rarely have the budget for enterprise software licenses.
The $11 million gives Era runway to prove the model works. But the challenge isn’t just technical. Era needs hardware makers to bet on its platform instead of building direct partnerships with model providers—a tension that’s already playing out across the industry. Meta is reportedly building its own AI operating system, and Google isn’t exactly going to let third-party gadget makers bypass its cloud infrastructure without a fight.
Era told TechCrunch it can scale its platform across millions of devices. The company declined to disclose current customer numbers or revenue. Sandbar and Taya are among the early startups using Era’s platform.