2019, 25-year-old ghanaian-american entrepreneur iddris sandu founded spatial labs, a web3 startup that has recently raised $10 million in its seed funding round. the round was led by blockchain capital and backed by billionaire rap artist jay-z’s venture capital firm marcy venture partners. the startup has developed a 13-millimeter microchip called the lnq one chip, which can be sewn or embedded into physical fashion items.
Funding round was announced in 2021. the lnq one chip uses near-field communication (nfc) technology, allowing it to be scanned with a smartphone to reveal details about the item and create a digital copy of it for metaverse wearability. each physical chip is linked to an nft on polygon, allowing brands to add details and custom content to the chip’s metadata.
Decided to build his tech on polygon rather than ethereum’s mainnet due to eth’s high gas fees. he believes polygon’s fees are much closer to those of credit card companies, and his hardware also allows spatial labs to avoid the bottlenecks of app stores such as apple’s. as one of the few founders of color of a hardware-focused company, sandu believes many vcs’ investment theses are biased against hardware founders. he is determined to break down these barriers and has declared that the funding announcement will not be the end of his journey.
https://decrypt.co/120006/backed-by-jay-z-web3-hardware-startup-spatial-labs-raises-10-million
