Small San Francisco’s startup is known for creating beautiful, beautifully designed layouts web cameras now he is competing to be AI the equipment company of this time.
Opal Camera is rebranding to Opal Electronics and will expand its product portfolio beyond webcams to a range of consumer devices, some of which will focus on AI. It aims to emulate Sony Electronics as a consumer electronics brand with a focus on design and culture, not just technology.
The transition was made possible thanks to a $40 million Series B funding round from OpenAI. Some information about investments were first reported in 2024but the deal was closed in the first quarter of 2025. Other investors in Opal include Samsung, Peter Thiel, Seven Seven Six (Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm), and tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee (known as MKBHD), among others, according to a source close to the deal. Opal is now worth around $275 million.
Opal Electronics declined to comment. OpenAI did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was an early customer and fan of Opal’s original C1 webcam, so much so that his team visited Opal’s offices in 2022 to ask about OpenAI’s Whisper. audio transcription format can be run locally on Opal cameras with live captioning on Zoom. The source, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, says it was at the end of this meeting that OpenAI showed the Opal team a preview. of ChatGPT. It made such an impression on the attendees that the company decided to turn into a research laboratory.
Since then, Opal has been working on an AI-powered audio product for the past few years. This, in turn, was the product that convinced Altman to invest in Opal. It will launch in the next three to four months and is currently being tested by Altman, researchers at OpenAI, and executives at xAI, The Thinking Machineand Anthropic. It’s unclear if it’s a wearable device, though the source says it’s a known product type, and that it’s not designed to compete with the iPhone.
OpenAI partnered with a former iPhone designer Jony Ive and his company, LoveFrom, to explore personal devices that can use ChatGPT and other OpenAI software. It is still unclear what it is the actual logistics strategy is for OpenAI, but its first product is rumored to be the same thing a wise speakerwith an expected launch date of early 2027.
Opal’s audio product will be launched in partnership with a specific AI lab—the source could not specify which one—but Opal is in talks with OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, allowing users to customize the models to their liking. Opal Electronics plans to release two more products in the next 12 months.
Courtesy of Opal Electronics
