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Friend doubles its AI pendant price as it adds a speaker and returns to market

7/30/2026

Friend's AI companion pendant can now speak out loud. That is a real product improvement.

The complication is that Friend is charging twice the original price for it, and the company arrived at this relaunch having spent $1.8 million of a $2.5 million fundraise on a URL.

The original spend The first Friend pendant came with a marketing campaign built around visibility.

Friend spent $1.8 million of its $2.5 million raise to acquire friend.com, then plastered New York City subway cars with advertising around artificial companionship.