Máuhan M Zonoozy, who previously led innovation at Spotify, has founded A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya, a startup that produces a series of small experimental music apps designed for interactive remixing and AI-assisted sound exploration. The company closed a $5.5 million pre-seed round from a group of investors including Mantis VC, SV Angel, Boxgroup, Quiet Capital, Remarkable Ventures, Common Metal, Gold House, Liquid 2 Ventures, Breakers VC, Collaborative Fund, Systemic Ventures, and added Dawn Ostroff — the former Spotify chief content and advertising business officer — as an advisor.
Why the project started
Zonoozy says streaming resolved access to music but left most interactions focused on consumption. Observing younger audiences who engage with culture through games, filters and simple creation tools, he saw an opportunity to give people playful, hands-on ways to interact with and modify music.
Product approach: small experiments released like singles
A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya releases standalone apps and websites as small experiments, treating each release like a “single” on an album. All the projects share a theme: let users interact with musical elements or sound in intuitive, often game-like ways.
Current apps and features
- Speed Surfer: a Chrome extension that changes playback speed and applies filters to audio in your browser window.
- Usersound: a website where you can build an “audio” username in which each letter corresponds to a musical note.
- Stacks: a stem player with a 3×3 grid where bars can be toggled on and off to create mixes.
- Drops: a mechanic where placing plaques deflects falling marbles to produce musical notes.
- Sampler: a web tool that converts YouTube videos into music samplers by extracting beats from different parts of songs.
The company’s most ambitious product so far is an iOS app called bop. In bop you place instruments and effects on a grid to create variations of a base song; you can adjust tempo, add one-off effects, and export mixes directly to TikTok or Instagram. A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya is also developing a multiplayer version that would let users remix tracks together in real time. The startup has recently added a prompt-based sound-creation feature to its apps.
Relationship to AI: selective, not ubiquitous
Zonoozy says the company has chosen not to infuse AI into every part of its products. They are open to using AI for product development and infrastructure, but do not believe the future of music is solely AI-generated songs. He argues that if AI makes content more abundant, human taste, perspective and active participation become more important and valuable — the company aims to ensure human interaction does not become rarer.
Near-term plans
Earlier tests did not include prompt-based features; those were added more recently. For the rest of this year, the startup plans to release a “musical sandbox mixer” that will let users experiment with multiple elements of music-making, including the ability to create instruments.
Founder background
Máuhan M Zonoozy left Spotify in 2024. Before Spotify he founded Bubbl, a video clipping and remixing startup that was acquired by Cricket Media. With A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya he has returned to building his own product portfolio, aiming to shift music from passive consumption to playful, participatory experiences.
A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya’s approach combines small, game-like experiments with cautious use of AI to broaden how people can create and remix music without replacing human creativity.
