Sonilo has raised $11 million in funding to develop and scale its AI-native audio platform, which generates music and sound effects designed to synchronize with the pacing, emotion, and narrative of video content. The funding round was led by B Capital, with participation from Redpoint. Sonilo plans to use the capital to expand its compute infrastructure and improve model performance, grow distribution across creator and developer platforms, and expand its music licensing capabilities.
At the center of Sonilo’s platform is its proprietary Sound World Model, a multimodal AI system that combines video understanding, audio generation, and temporal alignment. Rather than requiring creators to separately generate music, find sound effects, and manually synchronize audio to video, Sonilo analyzes the visual content and produces audio designed specifically for individual scenes.
Creators can upload footage, provide a text description of the desired sound, or combine video and text instructions. Sonilo said its model analyzes elements including timing, movement, pacing, emotional development, and the overall story to produce synchronized music and sound effects.
The platform targets short-form video creators, short-drama producers, enterprise production teams, and developer platforms building AI-powered video workflows. Sonilo also offers AI dubbing with synchronized lip-syncing, allowing studios to localize content into different languages while reducing manual post-production work.
Early distribution partners include AI creator aggregator TapNow and ComfyUI.
Sonilo is also building a commercial music infrastructure based on licensed source material. Shutterstock is an early licensing partner, and the company’s models are trained using licensed music datasets. Sonilo said its licensing structure provides fees and revenue sharing to participating rights holders and artists.
The company is also finalizing master recording and publishing agreements with major rights organizations, with additional agreements expected in the coming weeks. Sonilo plans to launch a consumer application in the fourth quarter of 2026, bringing its video-to-music generation technology directly to individual creators.
Sonilo’s founding team includes executives with experience across TikTok’s artificial intelligence and music operations. Co-founder and CEO Shawn Song is a Carnegie Mellon University-trained researcher who previously served as a multimodal AI tech lead at TikTok. CTO Alex Yin holds a Ph.D. in Computer Music from the University of York and previously worked with Song at TikTok.
COO Keli Li previously built and led TikTok’s global music operations, bringing music licensing and industry partnership experience to Sonilo. CMO Trista Taylor leads product and go-to-market strategy and has previously worked on consumer AI applications that were featured in a16z’s Top 50 rankings.
KEY QUOTES:
“Almost every audio-generation experience starts with a text prompt. You have to describe the music you want, line it up to the exact moments in your videos, and find the perfect sound effects which can take hours for one piece of content. We built Sonilo to understand the visual story. You give us the footage, and Sonilo understands what’s happening frame by frame, including the pacing, emotion, and story, and generates music and sound effects that naturally fit the scene. We believe the future of video isn’t just about generating better pictures but making those worlds feel real through audio that fits perfectly.”
Shawn Song, CEO And Co-Founder Of Sonilo
“We believe generative audio will become an essential part of the AI-native video stack. Sonilo stands out because its multimodal technology gives creators two ways to generate music and sound effects: describe what they want in text, or provide a video and let the model create audio that fits the scene. That model-native approach, combined with Shawn’s deep expertise in multimodal music generation and the team’s focus on the creator workflow, gives Sonilo the opportunity to define a new category in generative media. We’re excited to support the team as they build the audio layer for the next generation of video.”
Daisy Cai, General Partner At B Capital
