You go to a concert, chat with the stranger next to you and realize you have a lot in common. Perhaps you exchange phone numbers or Instagram handles. Or, perhaps, the stranger extends their arm to you and asks you to place your phone at the edge of their sweatshirt sleeve, where a small round button is.

Without having to download an app or scan a QR code, that button takes you to their Circle, a web-based social media platform where that stranger has a selection of photos, musings, music and other media curated in their profile.

“We thought about the beginning of manufactured products from clothing to shoes that are made to everyday items that we have within our home,” said Iddris Sandu. “For a while, these objects were incapable of storing data. They were static. The way that we experience the world today on the internet, everything’s online and everything is alive. But in the real world, things that we see on a daily basis, things that we use on a daily basis, should also have that same level of liveliness.”

Sandu created Spatial Labs, a Playa Vista-based fashion and technology startup that made Circle, the “button” (really a microchip called a Spatial Tag) and the sweatshirt it’s sewn onto. The company began in 2019 and received $10 million in seed funding from the likes of Blockchain Capital and Jay-Z’s venture firm Marcy Venture Partners. The company has worked with several celebrity-driven brands, like Beyonce’s IVY PARK athleisure line, Fenty by Rihanna, and Travis Scott’s project Cactus Jack, on augmented reality partnerships.

Spatial Labs’ backing is as star-studded as its founder’s past. Sandu, who was born in Ghana and raised in Torrance, taught himself how to code as a child and consulted for tech companies like Meta, Google and Santa Monica-based Snap Inc. starting at 15 years old. He worked with the late artist Nipsey Hussle to open the Marathon store, a “smart store” that allowed physical objects to stretch into the virtual world using AR. Sandu also was a tech consultant for Yeezy, Kanye West’s apparel and shoe collaboration with Adidas.

Melding the physical and digital worlds

Spatial Labs is the marriage of Sandu’s technology and fashion backgrounds. It’s also tapping into wearable technology, a category that has spawned Fitbits, Oura Rings, smartwatches and glucose monitoring trackers.

In 2021, connected device companies netted almost $3 billion in funding, per Pitchbook. After seeing its second best year in 2023, investors have largely neglected the category in recent months – the sector has raised just $237 million 10 months into 2024.

But instead of building new hardware and software, Spatial Labs is simply adding software to existing hardware: clothing. The company launched a line of clothing in September that is manufactured in Los Angeles and embedded with the Spatial Tag, allowing users to build a social media platform on Circle and share it with users and non-users alike. Pieces cost anywhere from $120 to $320. Yes, they’re machine-washable and yes, you can go through an airport metal detector while wearing them.

“If we’re incorporating technology into these things that exist, it shouldn’t have to change the behavior of how people associate with these things,” Sandu said. “Like even with a watch, I now have to charge my watch? I never had to charge my watch. I have to charge my glasses now? We didn’t want to create an ecosystem where people have to ask the same questions – I can’t wash my clothes anymore?”

Sandu sees the company expanding beyond its own clothing line and into furniture and objects. He said the company is in talks with other fashion brands to add Spatial Labs technology into its clothing. It’s also working to embed itself into events and venues, where wristbands would include a Spatial Tag. 

“We’re building a new infrastructure for physical products that’s never existed before. So much data is available online, and (artificial intelligence) and all these other tools are training data on information online,” Sandu said. “But the majority of data is still in the real world. It hasn’t been digitized.”

Changing social media

Sandu, who is 27, is also looking at the future of Circle in an oversaturated social media market. Circle doesn’t have a mobile app – purposefully, according to Sandu. One doesn’t need a profile on Circle to look at others’ Circles, they simply need to wave their phone near a Spatial Tag.

Right now, the company has 600 people on Circle, and the network effect is slow since the only people that can use it need to have access to the clothing line in one way or another. Sandu says this allows people to better bridge the gap between an in-person and online relationship – one’s Circle can only be seen by those who have already connected in person.

“It’s the interaction layer that you can only experience when you meet someone in person,” said Iddris Sandu. “Unlike traditional social media platforms, I can’t go look you up.”

Circle operates differently from bigger social media platforms in other ways too: It doesn’t have ad space, and there is no algorithm to offer curated content on an endless scroll.

“We really want to preserve that intimacy,” Sandu said. “When you start introducing other metrics and having chat and likes and comments, we’re really just not solving for anything anymore. We want people to feel like we can share way more intentionally and more intimately. That’s something that we feel like lacks today with traditional social media platforms.”

While the majority of users on Circle are everyday users, Spatial Labs is focusing on the enterprise applications of social media and “the immense amount of data that’s going to be available for developers, for businesses, for pulse user interaction,” according to Sandu. “Brands can tell you how many people walk into your store. They can tell you how many people bought their products. But very few brands can tell you how many people are actively using their products, unless (those products are) tech-native.”