Trondheim-based audio technology startup Nomono announces the closing of its €5.4 million seed round to fuel its research, development, and growth, after setting out to raise just €3.4 million in this round. The startup previously raised €2.4 million seed from SINTEF Venture and Spintop Ventures, and now Tvenge og Adolfsen joins as a new investor.
“This is a strong vote of confidence from the investment community that the work we’re doing is important and revolutionary,” says CEO Jonas Rinde. “Our team has built some incredible tools that are already finding traction with our beta customers, and we’re excited to have the runway to continue our work in simplifying the podcast production process while raising the bar on sound quality for all types of audio storytelling.”
Nomono is building hardware and software that makes it easier for professional podcasters, journalists, and audio storytellers to create great sounding immersive audio experiences, and leverages the latest innovations in Spatial Audio that have recently become available through technologies like Dolby Atmos and Fraunhofer’s MPEG-H.
The Nomono team has more than doubled in size in the past year, and now has employees based in Trondheim, Oslo, Sweden, and New York. At the same time, the podcast landscape continues to grow exponentially, with a more than 280% increase in the creation of new podcasts in 2020, from 300,000 new podcasts in 2019 to almost 900,000 in 2020.
“All these podcasters are working through cumbersome workflows that make field recording and collaboration difficult, often at the expense of creativity and audio quality,” says Jonas Rinde. “We’re excited to remove some of these roadblocks so they can focus on the conversations with their guests and colleagues, and to make it possible to bring their listeners right inside the conversation through Spatial Audio technology.”
Nomono’s expertise in Spatial Audio has also become even more valuable given recent announcements from companies like Apple and Netflix around Spatial Audio and podcasting, setting the stage for podcasters to bring immersive audio storytelling to their audiences. Spatial Audio technologies are being implemented for listeners in headphones, smart speakers, soundbars, mobile devices and cars, but the process of creating Spatial Audio requires specialized equipment and expertise that often puts it out-of-reach for the traditional podcaster or journalist. Nomono’s technology removes this bottleneck, giving audio storytellers access to this powerful new medium in a simple, accessible way.
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