Teen Founder Raises $11M for Ghost, a $3,499 Personal AI Computer

Ghost, a startup founded by 19-year-old Zain Javaid, has emerged from stealth with $11 million in seed funding and a $3,499 personal computer called Core designed specifically for running AI agents locally. The seed round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Abstract, Audacious Ventures, SV Angel, and Nova . Javaid, who previously worked as a quant, said he became interested in personal AI after ChatGPT's 2022 release. "I felt fundamentally excited in a way that I never had been before," he told TechCrunch . His founding team includes Nicholas Chua (19), Yifei Chen (24), and Gautam Sharda (23), with Javaid serving as CEO .

What Core Is

Core is a screenless device that Javaid describes as a "brain in a box." Users access it through a phone or app, and it has its own software layer, browser, and filing system . The device is designed to centralize a person's data—from desktop files to apps to smart home devices—into one piece of hardware that continuously runs AI agents capable of acting as an assistant, performing tasks, and understanding a person's life . The hardware includes an Nvidia RTX Pro 4000 SFF Blackwell GPU bundled into the price, along with an AMD Ryzen 5 7600 CPU, 64GB of DDR5 memory, and a 1TB NVMe SSD .

Preinstalled Models and Local Processing

Core comes with three models preinstalled: Qwen-3.8-Next, Qwen-3.8-27B, and Gemma-4-31B . Users can also install other models from Hugging Face or load their own trained models . Ghost emphasizes that models and personal memory run locally, with all personal information encrypted so that no cloud provider or third party, including Ghost, can meaningfully access it . "All of the source code, logic, and model weights live on the device, not the services," Javaid said, adding that "the user owns all of it" . However, Ghost's support page clarifies that Core still requires an internet connection for web search, email, and software updates. The privacy policy notes that online features can send task information to external services through Ghost's managed-service gateway, which the company says does not store the content .

Security and Firewall

The team is building a firewall to limit how agents use credentials such as logins and passwords. According to Javaid, it "monitors every outgoing network request on the computer and if it sees the agent performing a sanctioned action or exfiltrating data it shouldn't, it rejects the request and flags it for user review" .

Pricing and Availability

Core costs $3,499. Preorders opened Monday, with the first batch scheduled to ship in the last week of October. The team builds units at its San Francisco facility .

Positioning Against Competitors

Asked how Core differs from a Mac Mini configured for AI, Javaid said Core's hardware and software were built specifically for running AI agents, with models already installed. He also pointed to over-the-air updates, comparing the model update process to how Tesla handles vehicle software . On competition from established tech companies, Javaid said: "People sometimes give incumbents credit for having already built the product because they have the ingredients." He credited Apple with good hardware but said much of what Core tackles is software "the model reasons over your life, how it remembers, how it takes action, how it knows when to reach out" . When asked what happens if Apple or Microsoft ships something comparable, Javaid's response was flat: "If we can't do that, Apple isn't the reason we failed".

Investor Perspective

One analysis noted that the investable signal is not a new hardware competitor today, but a test of whether consumers will pay a premium to keep personal data and agent inference local. The $3,499 price makes adoption and retention—rather than launch attention—the key proof points .