Era, a startup building a platform that enables any device manufacturer, brand, designer, or creator to make intelligent objects with their own distinct style and behavior, has raised $11 million in seed funding and launched publicly. The round was led by Topology Ventures, with participation from betaworks, AIR (Collab Fund), Abstract, BoxGroup, Mozilla Ventures, and Collaborative Fund, alongside a group of angel investors including Caterina Fake and Ken Kocienda.
The company was founded by Elizabeth Dorman, Alexander Ollman, and Megan Gole, whose combined backgrounds span Humane, Apple, HP, and io. The team also includes engineers and designers from Princeton University, Harvard University, Carnegie Mellon University, Parsons, and the Australian National University.
Era’s platform is designed to serve as an intelligence layer for a new generation of AI-powered physical objects, allowing designers, brands, makers, and creators to build devices that think, respond, and act in their own style, without requiring deep technical expertise. The company argues that the era of one-size-fits-all consumer devices, defined by the same form factors, the same default voices, and a small number of dominant players, is coming to an end. In its place, Era sees a coming wave of intelligent objects deliberately crafted to reflect individual aesthetics, quirks, and specificities, made by a far broader range of creators than have historically had access to the tools to build them.
The company describes the current moment as a Cambrian explosion of new device form factors and creators. Ahead of its public launch, Era quietly tested the platform with 30 creative collaborators, each of whom built their own intelligent object using the platform. The first Era-powered product is set to drop in May.
