The company says its Series A, announced Thursday (May 21), will help it with its effort of pairing Hark’s foundation models with hardware “to create a universal interface between humans and machines.”
Hark added that it plans to use the funds to hire as it secures the infrastructure it needs, with plans to train the next generation of its models at the company’s Nvidia B200 data center.
“We’re ambitious, but we recognize the incredible challenges ahead. We plan to amplify human capacity, autonomy, and joy with an adept, personalized AI assistant,” the company wrote in its announcement. “This is a time when the right way is the hard way. And the right approach requires a blend of bespoke-crafted software and hardware.”
Hark founder and CEO Brett Adcock had discussed the company’s plans in an interview with Bloomberg News earlier, months after the startup hired former Apple designer Abidur Chowdhury as its head of design.
“We do believe that there’s more than one device to rule the world here,” Adcock said. “We’re working on a family of AI devices both for yourself and for the home.”
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He added that devices will be “distinct from existing handsets, wearables and smart glasses,” with the goal of making the products feel so essential that being without them would be like “a day of lost information.”
In other AI news, recent research from PYMNTS Intelligence shows that the real signal that consumers are adopting the technology isn’t in them using it for extraordinary tasks, but for everyday things like summarizing emails, drafting messages or organizing schedules.
The technology is becoming less visible because it is becoming more useful, the report said, arguing that the closest analogue isn’t the rise of the smartphone or social media boom, but the embrace of mobile banking. Consumers, PYMNTS, wrote, did not wake up one day eager to entrust their finances to their phone screens.
“Adoption happened incrementally through convenience and repetition. First came balance checks. Then deposits. Then peer-to-peer transfers. Over time, confidence accumulated through low-risk interactions until the behavior itself became normalized,” the report said. “Consumers today are not building trust in AI because they are mesmerized by the technology. They are building trust because technology increasingly removes friction from ordinary life.”
