A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya has raised $5.5 million in pre-seed funding to build interactive music products that let people manipulate, remix and create sounds rather than relying primarily on AI-generated songs. The startup, founded by former Spotify innovation head Máuhan M. Zonoozy, is releasing a collection of small music apps while developing a larger iOS product called bop.
The round includes Mantis VC, SV Angel, BoxGroup, Quiet Capital, Remarkable Ventures, Common Metal, Gold House, Liquid 2 Ventures, Breakers VC, Collaborative Fund and Systemic Ventures. Former Spotify chief content and advertising business officer Dawn Ostroff also participated and has joined the company as an advisor.
From Streaming Music to Playing With It
Zonoozy left Spotify in 2024 after serving as head of innovation and previously founded video clipping and remixing startup Bubbl, which was acquired by Cricket Media. He said streaming services largely solved access to music, but listening remained a mostly passive experience even as younger audiences became accustomed to interacting with culture through games, filters and creation tools.
A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya treats its smaller products like individual music “singles.” Speed Surfer is a Chrome extension for changing the speed and filtering of audio playing in a browser, while Usersound converts usernames into sequences of musical notes.
Stacks lets users manipulate song stems through a 3×3 grid, while Drops generates notes as users position objects that redirect falling marbles. Another product, Sampler, turns portions of YouTube videos into samples that can be used to construct beats.
Bop Adds Remixing and Limited AI Generation
The company’s more ambitious project is bop, an iOS app built around remixing existing music. Users position instruments and effects on a grid, modify tempo, trigger one-time effects and export finished mixes to platforms including TikTok and Instagram.
A multiplayer version is also in development to allow several people to remix music together. The company recently added a prompt-based tool for generating individual sounds, but Zonoozy said AI generation will not become the basis of every product the startup builds.
He argues that increasingly abundant AI-generated music could make human taste, interaction and participation more important rather than less valuable. The company is willing to use AI in product development and infrastructure, while keeping people directly involved in shaping the music itself.
A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya also plans to release a “musical sandbox mixer” this year. The product will give users access to different music-making elements, including tools for creating their own instruments.
Featured image credits: x.com
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