[5][6] The company was established in Palo Alto on November 9, 2015, by Android co-founder Andy Rubin, with funding from Playground Global.

[2][3] In December 2016, Brian Wallace, who left his occupation as chief marketing officer for Magic Leap a month prior, was reportedly working with Rubin.

[18] But, the new product never hit the market, as on February 12, 2020, the company announced that it was ceasing operations because there was "no clear way to deliver ['Gem'] to customers".

[6] In early 2019 Essential Products acquired CloudMagic, Inc., developers of the Newton Mail app, which shut down in September 2018.

It was announced in a company blog post on October 9, 2019[21] and cancelled three months later, on February 12, 2020, in coincidence with the shutdown of Essential.