Aina

Founder at @AinaInterface | Building new Interfaces for the AI powered world | Ex VP Hardware @ultrahumanhq | SF/Blr

Aina is building hardware controls for the age of AI agents, aimed at knowledge workers and developers who already lean on tools like Claude Code and ChatGPT but still drive them through keyboards and touchscreens designed for browsing. The Bengaluru- and San Francisco-based startup, whose name means "mirror" in Hindi, is trying to make its mark in a crowded field of human-computer interface devices , alongside rings, pins, and smart glasses chasing the same question of what a native AI interface should feel like. The company was previously known as Project Mirage and was founded by Apoorv Shankar, a former VP of Hardware at smart ring maker Ultrahuman. Before that, Shankar ran LazyCo, a hardware interface design startup that made gadgets, including a ring that let users control other devices like a smartphone, which Ultrahuman later acquired . Its first shipping product is Dune, a three-key, context-aware "macro" keyboard, essentially a small keypad that runs pre-set shortcuts, that can control the mic and camera in a meeting and run shortcuts or scripts based on the app users are viewing . Two related prototypes, Radiance (a tabletop dial for video calls) and Shift (a single-tap button that fires off an agent), have been folded into Dune based on early user testing. This launch matters because it puts money and a concrete roadmap behind a specific bet on form factor. Shankar has said the next device won't be a passive "context capture" gadget, the kind of always-listening ring or Plaud-style meeting notetaker that just records what's happening around you, but rather a device built to control and invoke agents . The $5.5M seed was led by Redstart Labs (Infoedge, India) and 360 ONE, with participation from MIXI Global Investments, Antler, and Blume Founders Fund, and drew individual investors including newly appointed WhatsApp head Kunal Shah, Razorpay co-founders Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, and Scribd founder Tikhon Bernstam , giving Aina the runway to pilot its next device with select users in the coming weeks.

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