Sandbar, a New York City–based interface company building wearable AI interaction tools, announced it has raised $23 million in a Series A funding round led by Adjacent and Kindred Ventures, bringing the company’s total funding to $36 million.
The Series A follows a $10 million seed round led by True Ventures in early 2025 and a $3 million pre-seed round led by Upfront Ventures and Betaworks in early 2024.
The funding will support hiring across machine learning, interaction design, and software development as Sandbar prepares to ship its first product, Stream, in summer 2026.
Stream is designed as a wearable conversational interface centered around a device called the Stream Ring. The ring integrates a touchpad, personal microphone, and haptic feedback, allowing users to capture ideas, retrieve web information, and take actions through voice interaction without needing to unlock a phone or interrupt their workflow.
The system is designed as a private voice interface that activates only when the user presses a button and speaks, even at a whisper. It uses multiple AI models to organize information, respond conversationally, and search the web in real time. The company says user data remains private and can be shared with other applications at the user’s discretion.
Stream is positioned as a tool for “self-augmentation” rather than an AI companion. The interface is intentionally designed without its own identity and focuses instead on helping users think, remember, and act more efficiently while on the go.
Sandbar was founded by Mina Fahmi and Kirak Hong, who previously worked together at CTRL-labs, a neural interface startup acquired by Meta in 2019. At CTRL-labs, the founders worked on bridging human intent and digital action, including projects related to the Meta Neural Band.
The company currently has a team of 15 employees and has brought in leadership with experience shipping major consumer hardware products such as the iPhone, Vision Pro, Fitbit devices, and Kindle. Recent hires include Sam Bowen as vice president of hardware and Brooke Travis as vice president of marketing.
Sandbar plans to launch a closed beta this spring to refine its software experience and introduce a feature called Inner Voice, which responds using a voice personalized to each user to create a more natural idea development process.
Pre-orders for Stream are currently open with early pricing available. The company says the first batch of devices has sold out, while the second batch is scheduled to ship in summer 2026.
KEY QUOTES
“We believe in self augmentation in an agentic world. With the right interface, everyone should be able to develop ideas and get things done wherever they are, with the speed, privacy, and ease of thinking.”
Mina Fahmi, Co-Founder And Chief Executive Officer, Sandbar
