{"id":379575,"date":"2026-03-11T14:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/379575\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T14:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:12:07","slug":"former-apple-engineer-raises-5m-for-a-note-taking-pendant-that-only-records-your-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/379575\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Apple engineer raises $5M for a note-taking pendant that only records your voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transcription and note-taking has emerged as one of the prime use cases for wearable gadgets as AI models advance voice-to-text tech. We\u2019re even seeing some differentiation, with startups like Plaud<\/a> and Pocket<\/a> specializing on products that can record and summarize meetings. Others like Friend<\/a>, Omi<\/a>, and Amazon-owned Bee<\/a> are exploring form factors like pendants and wristbands to give people a way to record interactions and their daily lives.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a bit of controversy around that latter aspect, as people understandably don\u2019t want to be recorded by someone without consent. A startup called Taya<\/a> by former Apple design engineer Elena Wagenmans is trying to address these privacy concerns with a device that records only the user\u2019s voice. As a bonus, the device masquerades as jewelry: it\u2019s designed to be worn as a nifty pendant.<\/p>\n

Retailing for $89, the Taya Necklace features a button that you can tap to start and stop recording; the mic is off by default. The startup also ships an accompanying iOS app that saves your notes and lets you ask questions about them through an AI-based chat feature.<\/p>\n

Unlike many of its older rivals which are building for a wide range of use cases, Taya\u2019s focus is on ensuring that the device only captures the user\u2019s voice. During onboarding, the app asks you to record a voice snippet, which it uses during recording to prioritize the user\u2019s voice and minimize everything else. The company said it is experimenting using directional mics to help with this.<\/p>\n

Taya said on Wednesday that it had raised $5 million in a seed funding round led by MaC Venture Capital and Female Founders Fund, with participation from a16z Speedrun.<\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits: Taya<\/p>\n

Wagenmans founded the startup in 2024 with Cinnamon Sipper and Amy Zhou, who also worked previously at Apple. Sipper and Zhou have since left the company.<\/p>\n

Wagenmans said she wanted to create a good-looking wearable that only works for the user because people often don\u2019t use these devices owing to concerns around social image and privacy. The company\u2019s ethos is similar to rivals like Sandbar<\/a> and Pebble<\/a>, which are aiming to build personal note-taking devices. <\/p>\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cWe realized that there is a lot of utility that you can provide, being a single-player [gadget]. Essentially, we want to capture your voice, not the room that you\u2019re in or the other people,\u201d she told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n

Wagenmans said the startup is experimenting with different mechanisms to make it easier for users to take notes, and also get feedback from the pendant that their note is saved. <\/p>\n

Currently, the company has five full-time employees, along with a few contractors, who work from its San Francisco office in person. <\/p>\n

Adrian Fenty, managing partner at MaC Venture Capital, said Taya\u2019s positioning as a privacy-first device that doesn\u2019t look like a gadget will help if scale beyond early adopters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited about the category, but would actually place Taya outside of the notetaker bucket. Those products are ambient recorders; they capture meetings and conversations around you. Taya\u2019s intentional, single-player capture is focused on just you. We believe that Taya can be a company that aids human work and personal evolution, and helps humans to understand their own behavior while making it more fun in the process,\u201d Fenty said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Transcription and note-taking has emerged as one of the prime use cases for wearable gadgets as AI models…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[74],"tags":[174450,83633,311,18,4500,19,17,174451,82],"class_list":["post-379575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-a16z-speedrun","tag-ai-notetaker","tag-apple","tag-eire","tag-exclusive","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-taya","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116210955177520430","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}