Pete Lau, a former Oppo executive joined forces with Carl Pei to launch a new smartphone startup. The duo alongside a small team unveiled the first OnePlus One in 2014. The device was the market’s first flagship killer. The device had a high-end chipset and a set of interesting specifications combined in a nice design and powered by the iconic CyanogenOS. Despite the controversial invite-system, the OnePlus One sold quite well allowing the company to bring more devices in the subsequent year. Six years have passed since OnePlus started its operations, and the brand is one of the most successful companies in the smartphone market. It has more than just flagship smartphones, having at least one offer for each market segment, and certainly has a bright future. However, back in the last year, it lost one of the minds behind its success – Carl Pei.
“We rethought everything and came up with Nothing”
Not long after the launch of the OnePlus 8T, Carl Pei announced it was exiting the smartphone brand. According to the executive, he was turning a blank page to have the freedom to think and bring new innovative products. After months of speculation, today, Carl Pei announced his new venture. It’s a brand dubbed: Nothing. Yeah, you’ve read it right, it’s nothing.
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According to the official description, the London-based company is described as being “a new, forward-thinking consumer technology company”. Interestingly, the launch tweet comes with the following message: “We rethought everything and came up with Nothing”. Despite the brand’s announcement, Nothing didn’t bring any product to start its journey in the market. For now, we’re not exactly sure of the kind of products unveiled by the brand. However, some rumors state that it will be an audio-oriented company.
Carl Pei announced he got a decent investment back in December last year. According to the former OnePlus’ executive, the company received $7 million in funding from prominent names. The list includes Tony Fadell (former CEO of Nest and inventor of iPod), Kevin Lin (co-founder of Twitch), Steve Huffman (co-founder and CEO of Reddit), Josh Buckley (CEO of Product Hunt), and Casey Neistat (YouTuber).
“It’s been a while since anything interesting happened in tech. It is time for a fresh breeze of change. Nothing’s mission is to remove barriers between people and technology to create a seamless digital future. We believe that the best technology is beautiful, yet natural and intuitive to use. When sufficiently advanced, it should fade into the background and feel like nothing.”
Although this launch does not bring products, the brand is set to launch its first smart products during the first half of 2021.
