Riga’s Sonarworks sounds good to investors, raises $6 million

Audiotech startup Sonarworks has raised $6 million in a new funding round. The Riga-based startup produces a range of next-generation audio applications in use in no less than 70,000 studios around the world as well as a personalised sound profile app. To date, the firm has raised a total of $13.8 million.

Founded in 2012 in Riga, initially as a professional audio space, Sonarworks made a splash in 2015 at NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) where they revealed their Reference 3 product suite. Producers and engineers took notice, and the startup soon found their products setting the industry benchmark when it comes to quality audio production.

In early 2020, the firm introduced SoundID, a machine learning-based app that moves away from the traditional one-size-fits-all approach to what music “should” sound like on your device, to a customised sound profile determined through a simple hearing ability test. Gateway, Drop, and Monoprice all took notice, as did consumers at CES.

In addition to expanding its licensing operations, Sonarworks aims to expand deeper into the U.S. market, as well as take on Asia. This expansion supports Sonarwork’s larger vision of bringing the world better audio on over 1 billion devices globally.

Sonarwork’s latest funding round was led by Almaz Capital and saw participation from Karma Ventures, Trind Ventures, Proks Capital, Smart Growth VC, Wiser Financial Advisors, and angel investors Cesar Lamschtein and Victor Yun.

“Karma Ventures has backed Sonarworks since they made their first steps towards the consumer electronics market. The progress with partners has been impressive and the signed licensing agreements clearly show that the industry has now really caught on with the personalised audio trend for which Sonarworks has the best solution in the market,” commented Karma Ventures’ Kristjan Laanemaa.