mentraos
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Mentra
Mentra is a San Francisco startup building MentraOS, an open-source operating system and app store for smart glasses, alongside Mentra Live, a 43-gram AI camera-glasses device. Founded in 2024 by MIT-dropout Cayden Pierce and Alex Israelov after they collaborated on the OpenSourceSmartGlasses project, Mentra wants to be the Android of smart glasses - a neutral software layer that lets developers ship apps and lets people actually use the hardware in the real world.
Cayden Pierce
Cayden Pierce is the CEO and co-founder of Mentra, a San Francisco startup building MentraOS - the open-source operating system for AI smart glasses. Described as 'the Android for smart glasses,' MentraOS lets developers write one app and deploy it across any pair of smart glasses. A self-described transhumanist hacker, Pierce built his first DIY smart glasses prototype in his dorm room, worked with smart glasses inventor Steve Mann at the University of Toronto, researched proactive AI wearable agents at MIT Media Lab under Pattie Maes, converted a 40-year-old RV into a mobile hacker lab, and dropped out of MIT in 2024 to launch Mentra. The company raised an $8 million seed round backed by the co-founders of Android, YouTube, and Pebble, plus Y Combinator, Amazon, and Toyota Ventures.