companies

Rabbit Inc.

Los Angeles startup behind the rabbit r1, a standalone orange AI gadget built around a Large Action Model instead of a phone app.

Founded in 2021 by Jesse Lyu (originally under the name Cyber Manufacture Co.), Rabbit is a Los Angeles hardware startup that set out to replace app-based smartphone interfaces with a small dedicated AI device. The company unveiled the rabbit r1 at CES 2024, a bright orange handheld co-designed with Teenage Engineering and built around what it calls a Large Action Model, or LAM, meant to carry out tasks like ordering food or playing music through spoken requests rather than app navigation. The r1 shipped to a rocky reception: early reviewers found the LAM's promised abilities largely unreliable, battery life poor, and several announced features slow to arrive, which kept the device a target of skepticism through 2024 and 2025. Rabbit has continued shipping software updates rather than abandoning the hardware, rolling out a rebuilt RabbitOS, an agent it calls Hermes, and support for a device-control protocol called OpenClaw, using the steady release cadence to argue the concept still has room to mature. Backed by investors including Khosla Ventures across several funding rounds, Rabbit has raised more than $60 million to date, took in additional funding heading into 2026, and has teased a next-generation device as it continues to position itself against phone-based assistants from larger AI companies.

Founded

2021

Headquarters

Los Angeles, United States

Sector

hardware