Anoria (YC S26)
Anoria, a YC Spring 2026-backed hardware startup, develops wearables that read emotions to train emotional intelligence, aiming to enhance human connection. Founded by Michael Belhassen, it has worn prototypes and offices in San Francisco and London.
- Team size
- 1-10
- Founded 2026
- Total raised
- $500k
- Pre-seed · last round Jun '26
About Anoria (YC S26)
Anoria is a YC Spring 2026-backed consumer hardware startup focused on reading emotions to enhance emotional intelligence. Its mission is to make emotional intelligence trainable to inspire human connection and creativity. Founded in 2026 by Michael Belhassen, a solo founder and ex-Apple hardware product designer who led the iPhone 17 Pro enclosure, the company operates with a small team of about five and maintains offices in San Francisco and London. The startup is fundraising in a round involving angels and strategic partners, with a closing expectation within a week, and is positioned alongside wearables peers in the Whoop and Oura space. Two months into development, its first prototypes have been worn in the wild, underscoring its early hands-on approach.
Culture & values
The company's mission is to make emotional intelligence trainable to inspire human connection and creativity.
The team is small, about 5 people, indicating a close-knit, multi-disciplinary collaboration with roles including founder, product/hardware designer, ML engineer, electrical, and marketing.
The company has offices in San Francisco and London, suggesting a geographically distributed presence.
Taglines like 'Read Your Emotions, Write Your Story' reflect a culture focused on emotions and storytelling.
Funding
$500ktotal raised
- Jun 2026 · Pre-seed$500k
Company at a glance
The team at Anoria (YC S26)
1-10 peopleSee everyone on LinkedIn
Team breakdown
Team Distribution
- Engineering33%
- Leadership33%
- Sales33%
Where the Team Studied
- 1.University of Cambridge
- 2.Imperial College London
- 3.University of Southern California
- 4.University of Warwick
Team Worked At
- Apple
- Accenture
- Morgan Stanley
- AROS LABS
- Dragon Sourcing
Location
Why Clera highlights Anoria (YC S26)
“Creating a new category: the first wearable that reads your emotions (Whoop for Emotions)”
“Founder Michael Belhassen spent 5 years designing iPhones at Apple and led the iPhone 17 Pro enclosure”
“YC Spring 2026, prototypes already on users wrists 3 months in, round closing with angels and strategic partners”
“Founding roles with up to 1-2% equity - hires expected to lead their orgs as the company scales”
Team Composition
4 people- Arts and Design1
- Engineering1
- Entrepreneurship1 senior1
Frequently asked questions
Creating a new category: the first wearable that reads your emotions (Whoop for Emotions). Founder Michael Belhassen spent 5 years designing iPhones at Apple and led the iPhone 17 Pro enclosure. YC Spring 2026, prototypes already on users wrists 3 months in, round closing with angels and strategic partners. Founding roles with up to 1-2% equity - hires expected to lead their orgs as the company scales
Ask your AI about Anoria (YC S26)
Connect Clera once, then ask what they're hiring for.
Ask about this company
Tell me about Anoria (YC S26) (https://www.getclera.com/companies/anoria). Then find open roles at similar startups on Clera that fit my profile.
Not connected yet? Takes a minute
https://mcp.getclera.comSign in with your Clera account. MCP docs
Companies similar to Anoria (YC S26)
A stealth startup building consumer apps. The first is a couples app, with a big App Store push planned for November. The team is based in San Francisco and Palo Alto and also hires remotely. More is shared on the first call.
We’re building the first autonomous insurance group, starting with Morrow, our AI-native commercial insurance brokerage. We help businesses find, compare, and buy insurance across 100+ carriers. Every placement deepens our understanding of businesses, risk, and underwriting. We’re turning that knowledge into an insurance ontology that gives our AI agents the context to reason, apply judgment, and execute insurance workflows autonomously across calls, emails, and carrier portals. Our ambition is to build the most comprehensive intelligence layer in the industry. Over time, we’ll use this foundation to develop and underwrite our own insurance products. Insurance spending represents 12% of U.S. GDP, and we want to go after all of it. We’re backed by C-suite executives at some of the world’s largest insurers, first-check investors in Rippling and Twilio, and a Cloudflare board member.
Aranya builds ClusterdOS, a GitOps-native distributed operating system that makes production-grade Kubernetes infrastructure accessible to solo developers and small teams. ClusterdOS removes operational barriers to Kubernetes adoption, and no platform team is required when using it. Aranya also offers managed Kubernetes services for bare metal deployments.