Qualcomm backs Ultrahuman in $70M round on bet to turn smart rings into computers
- ID
- 21114
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 04 Sep 2026, 1:00 AM
- Fetched
- 04 Sep 2026, 1:53 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/03/qualcomm-backs-ultrahuman-in-70m-round-on-bet-to-turn-smart-rings-into-computers/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 3.0
- Created
- 04 Sep 2026, 1:54 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developerssaas_founders
What happened
Bengaluru-based smart ring maker Ultrahuman raised $70M (including Qualcomm Ventures and Labcorp) at a $365M valuation, up from $120M in 2023. The company is working with Qualcomm on a new ring using Qualcomm silicon alongside existing Nordic Semiconductor chips, aiming to run software and algorithms on-device rather than acting purely as a health tracker.
Why it matters
This is a funding and hardware roadmap announcement with no immediate action for software builders. The claim that developers could eventually write programs for the ring is aspirational and undated; there is no SDK, timeline, or platform details to evaluate yet.
Discussion angle
Whether on-device compute on wearables is a meaningful new platform for builders or just a hardware vendor's pitch — and what an SDK and distribution model would need to look like before it's worth any developer's time.