Hardware startup Ghost has emerged from stealth after a year of building with an $11 million Seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company also introduced Core, a dedicated personal computer designed to run AI agents locally on a user's behalf. Other investors in the round include Abstract, Audacious Ventures, SV Angel, and Nova.
Purpose-Built Local AI Infrastructure
Ghost was founded by a young team led by 19-year-old Chief Executive Zain Javaid, alongside Nicholas Chua, Yifei Chen, and Gautam Sharda. The founders spent the past year developing Core as a self-contained device that can continuously process information and take actions without constant prompting. Javaid described the product as a brain in a box that users access through a phone or app.
The hardware includes an Nvidia RTX Pro 4000 SFF Blackwell GPU bundled into the US$3,499 price, and it ships with its own software layer, browser, and filing system. Core comes with three preinstalled open-source models: Qwen-3.8-Next, Qwen-3.8-27B, and Gemma-4-31B. Users can also install additional models from Hugging Face or load their own trained models.
Privacy, Security, and Device Ownership
Ghost positions Core as a privacy-first alternative to cloud-based AI services. All models and personal memory run locally, while personal information is encrypted so no cloud provider, third party, or Ghost itself can meaningfully access it. The user owns the device, memory, and data, and controls how much autonomy the agents receive.
The company is building a firewall that monitors every outgoing network request and flags suspicious or unauthorized actions for user review. Credentials such as logins and passwords are protected, and the system rejects requests that appear to exfiltrate data. Javaid said all source code, logic, and model weights remain on the device rather than in external services.
Core is designed to keep functioning even if Ghost shuts down, because its code and models are stored locally. The device can receive over-the-air updates similar to Tesla, and users can enable auto-updates to stay on the latest generation of a model. Javaid argued that existing hardware can run models, but the experience is poor on many levels.
Early Demand and Market Position
Pre-orders for the first batch opened Monday at US$3,499, and the company said the initial batch sold out within hours. Ghost is now inviting users to register interest for a second batch, though it has not said when new orders will open. The company builds units at its San Francisco facility and aims to sell a fully functioning computer without complex setup.
Javaid said he is not overly concerned about incumbents such as Apple, arguing that Core's differentiation lies mainly in software. The system is intended to reason over a user's life, remember details, take action, and know when to reach out proactively. He offered the example of Core detecting an elevated resting heart rate, late-night work history, and flu season context to send a proactive health alert.
As personal AI agents become more capable, Ghost is betting that users will want to keep their most sensitive data and automation outside cloud infrastructure. Its Seed funding and early sellout suggest demand exists for a dedicated, locally hosted AI computer, but the company still faces significant competition from established hardware makers. Ghost's next test will be whether it can scale production and turn early interest into a lasting product category.
Source: TechCrunch