Tonada announced it raised $3 million in pre-seed funding to expand its AI-generated sound platform for retail and hospitality brands. The Stockholm-based startup is focused on making high-quality AI-generated audio available to every brand that operates a physical space.
The funding round was led by Antler and joined by Spintop Ventures, RTP Global, Triple A VC, and Karaoke Club. High-profile angel investors also participated in the round, including Vercel founder Guillermo Rauch, a16z scout Dora Palfi Osika, Ingrid Bojner, and Mattias Miksche.
Tonada is building what it describes as an operating system for how physical spaces sound, feel, and sell. Its generative platform turns a brand’s identity into a unique and evolving catalog of original, royalty-free tracks that can be streamed across physical locations and adapted in real time.
The company is already live with paying customers across restaurants, hotels, wellness, retail, and co-working spaces in Scandinavia, DACH, and Singapore.
Tonada said many brands invest heavily in visual branding while overlooking how their physical spaces sound. Instead of building a deliberate sonic identity, many businesses rely on licensed playlists that are set to shuffle and repeated across locations.
The company cited research from HUI Research that tracked 1.8 million transactions and found that brand-matched music lifted sales by 9.1% compared to random popular music, while random popular hits performed 4.3% worse than no music at all.
Tonada said its platform also helps address licensing challenges for small retailers and hospitality companies that may otherwise face unexpected costs or fines from playing unlicensed music in their stores.
The company was founded by Juan Manuel Serruya, formerly an Engineering Lead at Spotify, and Jonathan Andersson, formerly Head of Sales at Wolt. Both co-founders are former musicians and bring experience across music, AI, retail, and European technology products.
KEY QUOTES:
“Every brand deserves its own sound. Brands have a CMS for their website, a POS for their checkout, a CRM for their customers, and nothing for how their spaces actually feel. This round lets us build that layer at the pace the market is asking for. Music is the first surface. It is not the last.”
Juan Manuel Serruya, Co-Founder and CEO of Tonada
“Tonada is one of those cases that build both a better product for their brand clients and a superior experience for the end consumers. They’re building real infrastructure in a category with real world impact that has been overlooked far too long. The founders’ combination of experience across AI, audio and retail is rare, and the early stage traction across regions is showing promise to be a global category winner.”
Tobias Bengtsdahl, General Partner at Antler
“This team understands both the technology and the creative craft of music, and it shows in the product customers love. We’re very proud to back team Tonada.”
Erik Wenngren, Partner at Spintop Ventures
