Nothing has unsurprisingly been pitching itself as a bit of a disruptor in the tech industry since its enigmatic launch earlier this year. Carl Pei's start-up has been big news from the start, but its latest announcement confirms that it's hardly a small player in the field.

Firstly, Nothing is going to collaborate with Qualcomm moving forward, to take advantage of the latter's widely-used Snapdragon platform for improved connectivity on its devices moving forward.

On top of that, Nothing has just closed a round of fundraising that's added $50 million to its value, showcasing how quickly it's growing, just as industry figures predicted it would. These two bits of news combine to make Nothing feel like one of the quickest "challenger brands", to use Pei's terminology, to transition into a fixture in the industry.

Finally, Nothing has also pointed toward a milestone that goes at least some of the way to justifying this continued hype. Its excellent Ear 1 earbuds, which impressed us hugely with their sound quality at a competitive price, has shipped 100,000 units since its launch in the summer.

That's a number that gets the more impressive when you consider its convoluted and restricted order process, which has seen Ear 1 listed on only a few select websites rather than through bigger retailers like Amazon.