Transcription and note-taking have become key uses for wearable gadgets as AI voice-to-text technology evolves. Companies like Plaud and Pocket offer products that record and summarize meetings, while others like Friend, Omi, and Amazon-owned Bee explore pendants and wristbands for recording daily interactions. Concerns about privacy arise when recording others without consent. Taya, from former Apple designer Elena Wagenmans, addresses this with a device recording only the user’s voice, designed as a pendant. Retailing for $89, it includes a button to control the mic and an app for saving and querying notes. Unlike competitors, Taya prioritizes the user’s voice with voice snippets and experiments with directional mics. The startup raised $5 million in seed funding from MaC Venture Capital and Female Founders Fund, with participation from a16z Speedrun. Founded in 2024 by Wagenmans, Cinnamon Sipper, and Amy Zhou, Taya employs five full-time staff in San Francisco. Taya’s design aims to make voice capture easy and discreet. Adrian Fenty of MaC Venture Capital sees Taya’s privacy-first approach as appealing to a broader audience, offering personal evolution insights through fun interaction.
Ex-Apple Engineer Secures $5M for Voice-Recording Note-Taking Pendant
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