Aina has raised $5.5 million in seed funding to bring its first general-purpose artificial intelligence hardware interface to market and expand its teams in San Francisco and Bangalore. Redstart Labs and 360 ONE Asset led the round. MIXI Global Investments, Antler and Blume Founders Fund also participated. Individual investors included Kunal Shah, Tikhon Bernstam, Razorpay founders Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, and Better Capital founder Vaibhav Domkundwar, among others.
Aina is developing consumer hardware designed to provide a simpler way for people to interact with AI agents, applications and digital services without relying exclusively on smartphones, touchscreens, keyboards and conventional graphical interfaces.
The company has also opened a waitlist for a pilot program involving its flagship product, which remains under development in stealth.
Aina believes advances in AI software have moved significantly faster than the physical interfaces people use to access that technology.
Generative AI can now create complex content and complete multi-step tasks from a single prompt. However, everyday activities may still require users to unlock a phone, locate an application, navigate several menus and manually enter information.
The company sees this disconnect as a barrier to broader AI adoption. Although consumers may understand the potential benefits of AI, many existing tools add applications and workflows to devices that were not originally designed around intelligent agents.
Aina is positioning its technology as a general-purpose interface capable of connecting users with multiple digital services through a more direct and context-aware experience.
The company has not yet disclosed the complete design or technical specifications of its flagship device.
Its broader objective is to create hardware that can help users perform common activities across phones and computers with fewer steps.
Potential use cases include joining online meetings, booking transportation, ordering food and completing other recurring personal or professional tasks.
Aina was founded by Apoorv Shankar, who previously served as vice president of hardware at health technology company Ultrahuman.
Ultrahuman develops a smart ring that tracks health indicators such as sleep and recovery. Shankar’s experience there included developing compact consumer hardware intended to collect information and deliver useful insights without requiring constant interaction with a screen.
Aina was incorporated in May 2025 and initially operated as a human-computer interaction research laboratory under the name Project Mirage.
The company used that period to experiment with new ways for people to communicate with AI systems across different settings.
At CES 2026, Aina demonstrated three experimental AI interfaces designed around everyday activities, including online meetings, ride booking and food ordering.
Each prototype explored how specialized hardware could reduce the number of steps required to interact with commonly used software.
The research contributed to the development of Dune, a context-aware keypad for Mac computers that Aina announced in April.
Dune features three physical keys that automatically change their functions based on the application currently active on a user’s computer.
Instead of assigning one permanent action to each key, the device adapts to the user’s immediate software environment.
For example, the available controls could change when the user moves between a video conferencing platform, productivity software or another supported application.
Aina has shipped hundreds of Dune keypads to early adopters and has been working with power users to understand how context-aware hardware fits into real-world workflows.
The pilot program allowed the company to collect feedback on how people use AI tools, which actions they want to simplify and where existing interfaces create unnecessary friction.
Dune was developed for specific computer-based workflows, but Aina’s flagship product is intended to address a wider range of tasks across mobile devices and computers.
The company is exploring an interface designed around AI agents, which can interpret user intent and complete sequences of actions across different applications and services.
Conventional interfaces require users to understand where particular functions are located and how to navigate each application.
An AI-centered interface could instead allow the user to express an intended outcome while software determines which services and actions are required to complete it.
Building a general-purpose interface presents challenges beyond designing the physical device.
Aina will need to connect with numerous applications and services, understand context accurately and provide users with control over actions involving personal information, payments and communications.
The product will also need to establish when an AI agent can act autonomously and when it should request confirmation from the user.
These considerations are particularly important for hardware that aims to complete everyday tasks without requiring people to review several conventional application screens.
Aina plans to use the seed funding to complete development of its flagship interface, prepare the product for market and hire additional employees across engineering, design and other functions.
The company’s operations across San Francisco and Bangalore give it access to consumer technology, artificial intelligence, hardware engineering and software development talent in both markets.
Aina is betting that the growth of AI agents will create demand for a new hardware category built around intent, context and automation rather than conventional applications and menus.
Its goal is to create an interface that makes advanced AI capabilities easier to use throughout the day while reducing dependence on smartphones, keyboards and touchscreens.
