Carl Pei's Nothing opens community funding round

London-based consumer technology startup Nothing, founded late last year by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, announced on February 16 that it is opening up a community equity funding round, or a crowdfunding round, for the general public to invest in it. The community round targets a total of US$1.5 million and investors will gain access to Nothing's private community. In addition, one of the crowdfunding investors will be elected to Nothing's board.

Pre-registrations for the community round have already opened and the actual campaign is scheduled to go live in March.

Nothing has raised a total of US$22 million to date, comprising US$7 million in seed funding from high-profile technology investors such as iPod inventor Tony Fadell, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, and Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and US$15 million in a Series A funding round led by Google Ventures. The funding is going to R&D and expanding the team, according to a statement released by the company at the time.

However, the startup has been highly secretive about its business plans. Although it has announced it will begin releasing smart devices in the first half of this year, Pei has not revealed what exactly those products are, leading to some speculation that the company will be producing music-focused products. Nothing's own website states only that it is “dedicated to removing the barriers between people and technology to create a seamless digital future.”