Zach Yadegali, the teenage co-founder of calorie-tracking app Cal AI, has launched a new AI agent startup, Persona , that has already raised $10 million. Vine Ventures led the round, with participation from Z Fellows founder Cory Levy and Collective Global.
In March, MyFitnessPal overtook the older calorie app in the app store rankings and acquired Cal AI for an undisclosed amount. The deal was big enough to convince Yadegali and his co-founders to sell the company, which had generated more than $30 million in annual revenue in less than two years, MyFitnessPal told TechCrunch at the time.
Yadegari and his co-founder initially worked for the new owner and continued to develop Cal AI, but he left the larger company in June, he told TechCrunch. Then he quickly moved on to his next idea. (He is working with another co-founder who has not yet been announced.)
The idea is Persona, a personal AI assistant similar to Instinct or Meta’s Muse, but with an upcoming hardware component: a $179 wearable band.
As such, Persona is somewhat similar to Bee, the wearable AI device that Amazon acquired in 2025, but Persona’s devices are different in a few ways, Yadegali told TechCrunch. First, it’s not an ambient AI, so it doesn’t listen or record all the time. The band has a button to launch the assistant, or you can set it to launch with a flick of your wrist.
Yadegari also said Persona was designed with user privacy in mind. Persona does not run AI models or store user data on the device. Instead, the model runs in Persona’s cloud and user data is sent there. Assistant protects your privacy by encrypting your data in transit and at rest. The company says users can also delete their data.
In this way, it is hoped that user conversations will remain private and not be sold to advertisers or data brokers.
The team has also strengthened safeguards to protect Assistant from phishing and prompt injection attempts, Yadegali said. According to AI labs like OpenAI, these are two areas that can trouble agents.
He also promises that Persona’s agents will not be able to see users’ credit card details, purchases will require user approval, and payments will be processed through external providers such as Stripe Link. Link is Stripe’s secure wallet designed for use by agents.
Although user data is not sold to advertisers, the startup’s current business model relies on advertising. Yadegali said the company displays advertised products during shopping research. But since agents don’t know what products are being promoted, he says agents will provide unbiased recommendations. For example, if someone is researching office chairs, “the agent knows their preferences,” he says, and will suggest chairs that match those preferences, some of which will also show sponsored results.
These bands are scheduled to be released in December, and an app is also in development. Persona, on the other hand, was released as a free beta product that lets users interact with the Assistant via iMessage text messages. It has attracted “thousands of beta users,” Yadegali said. The band has also already made “five-figure revenue in pre-orders.”
He said that like other consumer-facing AI assistants, Persona can perform tasks such as ordering food and rides, taking notes, booking travel, and answering questions and emails.
“All the utility apps that we use every day on our smartphones, whether it’s shopping apps or Uber or DoorDash or email, are collapsing into a single super app powered by AI assistants,” Yadegali said.
Ultimately, you want your personas to be more proactive. “You can offer help and solve problems before you even know you have them, and it’s more seamless with your life as a whole, so you don’t have to stare at a rectangle in your hand all day long.”
Check out Zach Yadegari on “How to Create and Harness Viral Growth” at TechCrunch Disrupt. Disrupt will be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center from October 13th to 15th. Before attending Cal AI, Yadegali started his first business in ninth grade and sold it for $100,000 when he was 16 years old.
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