Friend
$99 always-listening AI companion pendant designed to be your real-time digital friend.
Friend is a $99 always-listening AI companion pendant designed by 21-year-old founder Avi Schiffmann (the Harvard dropout behind the viral 2020 COVID tracker) to act as a real-time digital friend. The company raised ~$2.5M in seed funding in 2024 — Schiffmann famously spent $1.8M of that buying the friend.com domain — and ran a $1M NYC subway ad campaign in late 2025 that drew polarizing public reaction.
AI
📍 New York, NY
Founded 2024
Current Valuation
Private
PRIVATE
IPO Outlookprivate
Is Friend going public?
No. Friend is private and has not filed to go public. There is no S-1 on file.
What is Friend's valuation in 2026?
No confirmed valuation is on record for Friend. The roster shows funding and investors where they are public; it does not estimate a mark.
Has Friend filed an S-1?
No public S-1 is on file for Friend.
Who are Friend's investors?
Friend's investors include Caffeinated Capital, Perplexity (Aravind Srinivas), Solana (Anatoly Yakovenko), Z Fellows, Morning Brew Ventures.
How much has Friend raised?
Friend has raised $2.5M in total, most recently a Seed of $2.5M in Jul 2024.
Is Friend publicly traded — can you buy Friend stock?
No. Friend is a private company — its shares are not listed on any exchange and there is no ticker. The routes to exposure are pre-IPO secondary marketplaces and funds (accredited investors), employee tender offers when the company runs one, and public companies with read-through exposure. QuantLogix maps every route it can verify for Friend on its Pre-IPO Access Desk.
Answers are derived from the roster record shown on this page — filing status, last round and confirmed marks. Where the record is silent, the answer says so rather than guessing.
Company Profile
Last Round
Seed — $2.5M (Jul 2024) · Lead: Caffeinated Capital
Fundraising Status
Seed · $2.5M · 2y 3mo ago
privateTotal raised $2.5M
Latest Funding Round
| Round | Amount | Date | Lead Investor | Post-Money |
|---|
| Seed | $2.5M | Jul 2024 | Caffeinated Capital | — |
Vertical Intelligence — AI / ML
No verified Hugging Face organization found for Friend — no attributable open-model footprint. Closed-weights labs are common; this is a distribution signal, not a capability judgment.
Checked huggingface.co as of 2026-10-05. Re-checked weekly.
Talent Signal
No public careers page or job board could be found for Friend as of 2026-09-14. That itself is a datapoint: no open external hiring surface.
Checked the company site and major hosted job boards. Re-checked monthly.
Investors
Caffeinated Capital · Perplexity (Aravind Srinivas) · Solana (Anatoly Yakovenko) · Z Fellows · Morning Brew Ventures
Products
- Friend pendant ($99 wearable)
- Friend mobile app (iOS)
- Friend.com web companion
Competitors
Replika · Character.AI · Rabbit R1 · Humane AI Pin (defunct) · Limitless Pendant
aiwearablesconsumer hardwarecompanion aiearly stage
Private-company numbers are not real-time. Reflects publicly disclosed valuations from press releases, news reports, and tender offers as of recent date. Refreshed quarterly.