Jesper and Jesse Will Work Together Again at rabbit!
April 23 2024 - 9:10PM
Business Wire
Today, Santa Monica-based AI startup rabbit inc. has announced
the appointment of Jesper Kouthoofd, founder of teenage
engineering, as Chief Design Officer at rabbit. Together with
rabbit founder and CEO Jesse Lyu, Kouthoofd will guide the future
product design for rabbit while maintaining his roles as head of
design / CEO at teenage engineering.
“When a startup sets out to do something completely different,
the most important thing is to bring the right people on board,”
said Lyu. “Jesper built teenage engineering into one of the most
respected and iconic forces in the industrial design world, with
elegant products that are immediately recognizable. We’ve known
each other and trusted each other for more than a decade, and now
I’m proud to be able to work side-by-side with Jesper, who has been
an inspiration to me. He and the teenage engineering team were
instrumental in co-designing our first product, rabbit r1. With
Jesper on board, rabbit is ready to push the boundaries of creating
technology products with a deep focus on design.”
“Teaming up with Jesse to bring design to the forefront of this
new AI hardware space is the right opportunity and the right time,”
said Kouthoofd. “The consumer electronics industry is at a turning
point where AI will create new possibilities for many people. I am
excited to put all my passion into this. Forward!”
At CES 2024, rabbit announced its first product, rabbit r1, a
custom-built consumer AI device running on a revolutionary
natural-language operating system built on rabbit’s proprietary
Large Action Model. The industrial design of r1 was developed
together by rabbit and teenage engineering, and has already been
widely recognized in the consumer technology industry for its
retrofuture aesthetic and intuitive functionality.
Lyu and Kouthoofd first met more than 10 years ago and
immediately connected over their shared passion for synthesizers,
music and product design. Their collaboration officially began when
Lyu’s previous company, Raven Tech, engaged teenage engineering to
help design award-winning products like the Raven H and Raven R
speakers. Lyu joined the board of directors of teenage engineering
in 2020 and continues to serve in that role.
About rabbit
rabbit inc. is an AI startup developing a personalized operating
system (OS) through a natural language interface and dedicated,
affordable consumer hardware to host the OS. The OS, called rabbit
OS, is capable of understanding complex user intentions, operating
user interfaces, and performing actions on behalf of the user. The
key technology powering rabbit OS is the Large Action Model (LAM),
a new type of foundation model that understands human intentions on
computers.
The company is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and
was founded by a group of researchers, engineers, and repeat
entrepreneurs with extensive experience in shipping AI hardware
products and operating high-performance computing (HPC) clusters to
train large AI models. A two-time Y Combinator alumnus, rabbit’s
Founder and CEO, Jesse Lyu, previously founded Raven Tech, a
startup that pioneered conversational AI operating systems. rabbit
raised $30m in funding to date from investors, including Khosla
Ventures, Synergis Capital, and KAKAO Investment.
About teenage engineering
teenage engineering is developing the alternative future of
consumer electronics, each invention designed to last. from
reimagining music-making with the iconic OP-1 portable synthesizer
and growing the synth population with the affordable pocket
operator series, to rethinking listening with the OD-11 ortho
directional speaker and the OB–4 magic radio, they have applied
their signature mindset to a new legacy of enduring technologies.
their creations have attracted collaborations with well-known
artists and brands, sharing in their vision to integrate creativity
into the everyday. teenage engineering was founded in 2007 and is
based in stockholm, sweden.
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Ryan Fenwick rabbit inc. media@rabbit.tech