Osom to close on Friday because ‘no mobile customers’

Launching a phone company is an incredibly difficult — some would even say stupid — thing to do. OSOM Products, which was founded from the smoldering ashes of Essential in 2020, is closing up shop. Android Authority was first to report the news, after gaining access to an internal announcement from CEO Jason Keats.

OSOM was always going to have a tough road ahead of it as it planned to launch a privacy-focused mobile phone. And like Essential before it, the company was dealing with its own legal woes—namely, a lawsuit from a former employee alleging financial mismanagement.

For its part, the company managed to release a mobile device, albeit not the first-party phone it had announced. Instead, the company lent its technology to a Web3-centric device from Solana.

OSOM has managed to market the product under its own name. The OSOM Privacy Cable is essentially a USB cable whose data transfer can be disabled in situations where “juice jackers” may be present.

“The Android Authority report is correct, OSOM is unfortunately closing. In May 2024, with no mobile customers despite concerted efforts, OSOM decided to move to a new project at the time,” CEO Jason Keats said in a statement to TechCrunch. “OSOM was forced to lay off a number of employees at the time to reduce the rate of burn.”

The “new project” appears to refer to an “AI-powered camera” that was planned as a follow-up to the unreleased smartphone. Initial reports suggested that Keats had tried to sell the company to HP but failed to reach an agreement.

“Unfortunately, given the bleak market climate for consumer electronics startups, we were unable to raise a new round,” Keats says. “While some maintenance operations to ensure contractual requirements are met will continue, OSOM’s overall operations will be closed on September 6.”