Peter Mo, a former executive at the AI hardware firm Plaud, has raised $26 million in a Pre-A funding round for his new startup, Mistlabs. The investment, led by Luminous Ventures and Huaqin Technology, will fuel the development of Ambi, an “ambient intelligence” platform designed to assist users by monitoring their environment in the background.
The launch of Ambi marks a transition from Mo’s previous work with the Plaud Note, a hardware-first recording tool primarily used for transcription and summarization. While the Plaud Note is a reactive device that requires manual activation to record specific meetings, Ambi is built for proactive engagement. The software aims to understand real-time context to offer counsel and coordinate tasks autonomously, rather than simply documenting past conversations.
To address the privacy implications of an “always-listening” assistant, Mistlabs has confirmed that the “ambient capture” feature is disabled by default. The company claims it does not store raw audio recordings and that all processed data is encrypted. According to a release from the company, Ambi is also designed to facilitate “agent-to-agent” communication, allowing different users’ AI instances to interact directly to manage scheduling or information exchanges.
Hardware Roadmap and Retention
Mistlabs currently employs 50 people across offices in San Francisco, Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
While the initial focus is on software for existing devices, Mistlabs is also developing proprietary hardware to support the Ambi ecosystem. The company is working on a standalone wearable device that will include a camera and a display. This device is currently slated for release between late 2026 and early 2027, aiming to provide a dedicated physical interface for the startup’s ambient intelligence features.
