Sandbar: Building New Interfaces for Productivity

Our Investment in Sandbar

Personal computing is not only a digital and virtual action, but a deeply physical one. If you think about the grand total time we spend on our phones, laptops, tablets, and displays each day, the physical and cognitive ergonomics of computing goes beyond just the fitting of our work to our human capabilities; it is about fitting our lives to what is now possible with AI.

At Kindred Ventures, we've been exploring new ideas about how the physical and digital context of our lives will shape the human-computer interaction we crave. While we are interested in human-computer interaction, we are obsessed with the future of human-agent interaction and latent, virtual, and physical spaces all connecting continuously for productivity and fun for people.

Today, we're stoked to announce we're co-leading Sandbar's $23M Series A with Adjacent, alongside previous investors True Ventures, Upfront, and Betaworks. Led by Mina Fahmi and Kirak Hong, Sandbar is chasing a vision that technology should feel like part of your own thinking and actions enabled by generative AI, not something you have to stop, then type or talk to. That's the single thread running through everything they're designing and building.​

Their first product, Stream, is an excellent example of that. It's a small, private way to capture thoughts with casual near-invisibility and build on them later-part voice ring, part conversational notes app and a personal agent. You can use it at any time during your day, in motion, without pulling yourself into a different app context.​

What happens after capture is where it gets interesting. Stream keeps track of what you share so you can come back to it, search it and turn it into something useful with simple contextual commands. It's designed to respond or take virtual actions when you ask, and allow you to continue moving in the real world. The emphasis is on giving you better recall and better transformation of raw material into polished, valuable intelligence.

The philosophy behind this is in some ways contrarian to many products that frame AI as a replacement for human thought and creativity. Sandbar feels differently about this. They're focused on a simple, powerful interface that fits into daily life and helps you think more clearly, remember more, harness your thoughts, and develop ideas and relationships.

Over time, Mina and Kirak want interactions with technology to feel like an extension of you-helping you do work, manage your data and media, connect with people, and make things you're proud of, wherever you are. Today, platforms like Perplexity, OpenAI, Anthropic, and OpenClaw are enabling agents to orchestrate subagents in always-on workflows in a variety of modalities. These agents, harnesses, and models help you understand your personal context, take your ideas, and manifest them into the virtual and physical worlds. Stream is the first visible wearable interface step in that direction, with much more to come.

Every time we chat, the team is full of thoughtful energy and optimism! They are also deeply experienced. Mina and Kirak worked together at CTRL Labs, which was acquired by Meta, where they designed and built the neural interface devices. The engineering and design team comes from Amazon, Fitbit, and Humane. If you're interested in learning more or joining the team, please reach out to us at [email protected].

Sandbar is working on incredible products, orchestrating models, agent harnesses, and agents to delight and fit personal computing deftly for humans.