Unlike AI devices like Rabbit or Humane, companies building dedicated devices to record and transcribe meetings have seen some traction. The market is huge, if a bit limited, as smartphones work well for these types of tasks when combined with note-taking apps, and startups like Plaud, Mobvoi, Anker, Viaim and Vibe They have jumped to take advantage.
In this crowded market, Pocket, backed by Y Combinator, believes it can win with its design, packaging and price. The company sells a $129 credit card-shaped disk, which sticks to the back of your phone and promises unlimited recordings, transcriptions, and to-dos—no subscription required.
The startup says it has sold more than 130,000 units since launching last year, and that momentum has now helped it secure $11 million in funding from Accel, Y Combinator and ElevenLabs CEO and co-founder Mati Staniszewski.
The core idea of Pocket isn’t novel: You put the drive in the back of your phone, activate recording during a meeting, and it will record and transcribe your conversations.
Users can then ask the accompanying phone app to generate meeting summaries, ask an AI assistant questions about the meetings, create mind maps, and transform text into different templates.
While basic transcription comes free with the drive, the company sells a $200 per year plan to unlock unlimited AI summaries, AI assistant queries, daily highlights, and file attachments.
“You can record on the go, offline and in the field, which is exactly how lawyers, salespeople, doctors, real estate agents, construction workers and students use Pocket today,” said Cecilia Wang, partner at Accel. “Not only are people present instead of shifting focus to take notes, but you’re also capturing more information and knowledge than ever before that would otherwise have been lost. Over time, that accumulation of knowledge is really valuable: a central place where your ideas, conversations and thoughts live, rather than being scattered and lost,” Wang said.
Pocket was founded by Akshay Narisetti, who was a founding member of rival note-taking startup Omi; and Gabriel Dymowski, who previously founded a blockchain-based document management startup.
“We thought all meeting note takers were designed for online conversations, but nothing was geared toward real-life conversations. AI really needs a lot of context to work best for us, and a lot of that context exists offline,” Narisetti told TechCrunch.
For its enterprise customers, Pocket offers custom workflow management, webhook support, and integration with apps like Google Calendar, OneDrive, Google Drive, Obsidian, Claude, and Cursor. Additionally, there is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to connect your AI assistant to other databases.
Like other meeting note takers, Pocket wants to help people automate tasks like composing emails, updating CRM, and creating meeting-based action items. The company is committed to shipping software quickly to enable these integrations.
To be sure, devices like the Pocket face competition from software players like Granola, Zoom, Fireflies, Otter, and Read AI. However, companies that prioritize devices like Plaud, which is on the right track generate annual revenue of $100 million through software salesThey are also developing business capacity along with desktop apps for digital meetings.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
