A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya is a startup from a former Spotify leader for making music apps

A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya is developing a portfolio of compact, experimental music apps that invite users to tinker with sound rather than passively consume it. The startup was founded by Máuhan M. Zonoozy, who previously led innovation at Spotify and earlier built Bubbl, a video clipping and remixing company that was sold to Cricket Media. The company disclosed a $5.5 million pre-seed raise 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 former Spotify executive Dawn Ostroff, who joined as an advisor.

Zonoozy told TechCrunch that his motivation came from seeing younger users engage with culture through games, filters and creation tools, and from the sense that streaming fixed access but left most interaction centered on consumption. To address that, the company publishes its experiments as standalone "singles" that together form an album of interaction concepts. Each release explores a different way for people to shape sound and voice rather than just listen.

The products launched so far cover a variety of interaction models. Speed Surfer is a Chrome extension that alters playback speed and applies filters to audio in the browser. Usersound turns a username into an "audio" handle by mapping letters to notes. Stacks is a stem player that lets users build mixes by toggling elements on a 3×3 grid. Drops generates notes as marbles fall past plaques arranged by the user. Sampler converts sections of YouTube videos into beat-based samplers. The company’s more feature-rich iOS app, bop, places instruments and effects on a grid to produce alternate mixes of a base song, lets users tweak tempo and one-time effects, and supports easy export to TikTok and Instagram; a multiplayer remix mode is in development and the team has recently added a prompt-based sound feature.

Zonoozy says A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya is deliberate about where it applies AI: he’s open to using it for infrastructure and particular features but does not want every product element to be AI-generated. He argues that if AI increases the abundance of generated music, human taste, interaction and participation will become even more important. The company plans to release a "musical sandbox mixer" this year that will let users experiment with music-making elements and create instruments. TechCrunch also notes the story’s headline was updated after the startup added prompt-based features following a testing period last month.