A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya is a startup offering fun music apps without any AI prompting

As AI rages on, new startups are creating tools for people to create music using generative AI prompts in the style of any artist they want. A Vinly Bar in Shibuya, a startup that sounds more like an indie band name, is focused on releasing a series of small apps that let you play around with sounds and vocals.

The company has raised a $5.5m pre-seed round from Mantis VC, SV Angel, Boxgroup, Quiet Capital, ERA, Common Metal, Gold House, Liquid 2 Ventures, Breakers VC, Systemic Ventures, and former Spotify chief content and advertising business officer, Dawn Ostroff, who joined the company as an advisor.

The startup is built by Máuhan M Zonoozy, who was the former head of innovation at Spotify. Prior to that, he founded a video clipping and remixing startup called Bubbl, which was acquired by Cricket Media.

Zonoozy, who left Spotify in 2024, said that he always wanted to go back to building something of his own. He thought that while streaming solved the access problem, most of the interaction with music was still around consumption.

“I think when I looked at emergent behaviors and younger audiences, like everyone’s growing up playing with culture through games, through filters, through creation tools. And I just felt like there was an opportunity to empower people to do something similar with music,” he told TechCrunch.