Pocket raises $11M in bet on rising demand for AI note-taking devices

Pocket, a Y Combinator-backed startup, has secured $11 million in funding from Accel, Y Combinator, and ElevenLabs CEO and co-founder Mati Staniszewski. The company sells a $129, credit card-shaped device that sticks to the back of a phone and promises unlimited recordings, transcriptions, and to-do items with no subscription required.

Since launching last year, Pocket has sold over 130,000 units. Basic transcription comes free with the puck, but the company offers a $200-per-year plan that unlocks unlimited AI summaries, queries to the AI assistant, daily highlights, and file attachments.

Pocket was founded by Akshay Narisetti, a former founding member of rival note-taking startup Omi, and Gabriel Dymowski, who previously founded a blockchain-based document management startup. Narisetti said the goal was to build a device for real-life conversations, not just online meetings.

For enterprise customers, Pocket provides custom workflow management, webhook support, and integrations with apps like Google Calendar, OneDrive, Google Drive, Obsidian, Claude, and Cursor. It also offers a model context protocol (MCP) server to connect its AI assistant to other databases.

Pocket faces competition from software players such as Granola, Zoom, Fireflies, Otter, and Read AI, as well as from device-first companies like Plaud, which is on track to generate $100 million in annual revenue from software sales. However, Pocket aims to differentiate itself through design, packaging, and pricing.