Humane, the ambitious launch behind the PIN AI device aimed at one day to replace smartphones, has agreed to sell parts of its HP business for $ 116 million, companies said on Tuesday.
HP said it was planning to acquire Humane’s “AI potential”, including the software platform, intellectual property, patents and some employees. Pin Ai will close, Humane said in a message to customers.
The deal covers a drop for high -flight startup, which largely promoted the $ 699 pin with ads, a TED speech and the Paris Fashion Week with Supermodels. Humane raised $ 240 million in funding from high profile investors, including Marc Benioff, SalesForce’s chief executive, and his Openai counterpart, Sam Altman, rating the company at $ 850 million before a product was released.
Humane was created by Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, founders of spouse and spouse who worked in Apple in the past. The couple envisioned a portable device that people will steal in their clothes and interact with the use of voice commands and a laser screen shown on their hand. The idea was to reduce the time dedicated to smartphone screens.
But Pin Ai, who started sending to customers last spring, was a flop.
The reviewers criticized the product, with AI software often giving incorrect answers or taking a long time to answer, while the pin batteries sometimes overheat. Humane hoped to sell 100,000 pins in the first year, but only took about 10,000 orders. At one point, the company told customers to stop using their charging cases due to the risk of fire.
Last year, Humane hired an investment bank to sell itself, also looking for new funding. The start requested a sale price of more than $ 1 billion.
On Tuesday, a letter published on Humane’s website stated that the pins would no longer work at the end of this month and that customer data would be deleted. “Our business priorities have shifted,” the letter said.
HP, which sells about 53 million computers a year, said it wants to add AI capabilities to its laptops to make them more useful. Last year, HP worked with Microsoft to develop a series of AI computers called Copilot+ PCS.
In its announcement, HP said it would use Humane technology to become a more “experience -based company”. Humane workers will be part of a new innovation workshop called HP IQ, which will focus on “building an intelligent ecosystem on HP products and services”. Mr Chaudhri and Ms Bongiorno will participate in the company, as well as the majority of start -up employees, a HP spokesman said.
“We are investing and innovating aggressively in new capabilities and software powered by AI,” said Enrique Lores, president and CEO of HP, during a call with analysts in November. “We will focus on providing AI’s cutting -edge technology.”
