AI wearable startup Sandbar has raised $23 million in Sequence A funding because it prepares to launch a voice-enabled good ring designed to assist customers seize concepts, organise notes, and work together with synthetic intelligence on the go.
The New York-based firm introduced the funding this week, with the spherical led by Adjoining and Kindred Ventures.
The funding brings Sandbar’s complete funding to $36 million following a $10 million seed spherical led by True Ventures in early 2025 and a $3 million pre-seed spherical backed by Upfront Ventures and Betaworks in 2024.
Sandbar plans to make use of the brand new funding to increase its engineering and product groups and speed up growth of its first gadget, the Stream ring, forward of a deliberate summer time 2026 launch.
The corporate describes Stream as a wearable conversational interface that mixes a {hardware} ring with AI-powered software program to assist customers suppose by way of concepts, seize notes, and retrieve data with out counting on a smartphone.
“We consider in self augmentation in an agentic world,” mentioned Mina Fahmi, co-founder and CEO of Sandbar.
“With the best interface, everybody ought to be capable of develop concepts and get issues completed wherever they’re, with the pace, privateness, and ease of pondering.”
A Ring Designed for Voice Interplay
The Stream ring integrates a touchpad, private microphone, and haptic suggestions system right into a compact wearable type issue.
Customers activate the microphone by holding the contact panel, permitting them to file notes, ask questions, or work together with the gadget’s AI-powered interface.
These interactions are then processed by way of a companion cell software that organises recorded content material, retrieves data from the net, and generates responses utilizing a number of AI fashions.
In response to Sandbar, the system is designed to permit customers to seize ideas and construct on concepts with out interrupting their workflow.
The gadget differs from conventional voice assistants by requiring customers to intentionally activate the microphone. As a substitute of listening constantly for a wake phrase, Stream solely data when the contact panel is pressed.
“Not like AI companions, Stream is designed with out an id of its personal,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement.
“It remembers what you share, listens solely if you maintain the button to talk — even at a whisper — and makes use of a number of AI fashions to organise, reply, and search the net in actual time.”
The corporate says this strategy is meant to offer customers extra management over when audio is captured whereas protecting interactions fast and unobtrusive.
From Neural Interfaces to AI {Hardware}
Sandbar was based by Mina Fahmi and Kirak Hong, who beforehand labored collectively at CTRL-labs, a neural interface startup acquired by Meta in 2019.
At CTRL-labs, the pair labored on expertise designed to translate human intent into digital actions, together with analysis that contributed to Meta’s neural wristband tasks.
That have helped form Sandbar’s deal with constructing new interfaces for interacting with computing methods extra naturally.
The corporate at present employs round 15 folks with backgrounds in client expertise and product design. Staff members have beforehand labored on gadgets together with the iPhone, Imaginative and prescient Professional, Fitbit, and Kindle.
Sandbar has additionally introduced in a number of new senior hires because it prepares for launch, together with Sam Bowen as vice chairman of {hardware} and Brooke Travis as vice chairman of promoting.
Coming into a Rising AI Wearables Market
Sandbar’s Stream ring enters an more and more lively marketplace for AI-powered {hardware} designed to seize spoken data and assist conversational interplay with digital assistants.
Advances in generative AI and speech recognition have prompted a wave of startups to discover new gadget classes constructed particularly for AI interplay.
Some corporations are specializing in devoted note-taking gadgets able to recording conferences and producing summaries. Others are experimenting with wearable codecs that combine microphones and sensors into equipment similar to pins, glasses, and rings.
Good rings, specifically, have grown in reputation in recent times, primarily as well being and wellness gadgets that monitor sleep, exercise, and biometrics.
Sandbar’s gadget takes a unique strategy by specializing in voice interplay and thought seize reasonably than well being knowledge.
By turning the ring right into a voice interface for AI, the corporate hopes to make it simpler for customers to file ideas, brainstorm concepts, and entry data whereas shifting by way of their day.
Making ready for Launch
Sandbar plans to launch a closed beta program within the coming months to refine the Stream software program expertise earlier than the {hardware} ships later this yr.
The beta will even introduce a characteristic known as Interior Voice, which the corporate says will permit the system to reply utilizing a voice personalised to the person.
Pre-orders for the Stream ring are already open, with early demand reportedly sturdy. In response to the corporate, the primary batch of pre-orders has offered out, with a second batch now obtainable forward of the summer time delivery window.
With contemporary funding secured and growth underway, Sandbar is betting that wearable AI interfaces might signify a brand new route in how folks work together with expertise, enabling quicker and extra pure methods to seize concepts and interact with synthetic intelligence all through the day.
