startups

MixHalo Live-Audio Tech Startup Remixes Management, Raises $10.7M From Major Bands, VCs – Forbes


Tech startup MixHalo – co-founded by Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger with seed investor/advisors including Pharrell Williams, Hans Zimmer, Rick Rubin, and Metallica – has added new management and money to help its push to improve amplified sound quality at live events.

Foundry Group led a $10.7 million Series A round. The company also has shuffled its management ranks, officially announcing tech veteran Marc Ruxin as CEO, a position he has held since the start of the year. Einziger is now Chief Creative Officer.

The company’s system relies on a network of transmitters in a building or other venue that can distribute dozens of audio channels to users’ cellphones (and connected headphones) through an app. By using the wireless transmitters, the system avoids depending on the typically swamped and useless WiFi and cellphone networks at heavily attended events.

Per MixHalo’s music roots, its most straightforward application is to ensure that people in the cheap seats at a concert can get the kind of high-quality audio that musicians hear through their in-ear monitors onstage, said Ruxin.

“Think of it like HD for your ears,” Ruxin said. “HDTV introduced an improved viewing experience that people didn’t even know they were missing. Mixhalo is doing the same for audio at live events. We are creating a new paradigm for the audio experience at venues, events and cultural moments.” 

The system already has been deployed in pilot projects at venues such as Aerosmith’s residency in Las Vegas, which provided VIP ticket holders access to three specialized mixes of their performances.

Pilot venues/events include the North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre, the Park Theater at Park MGM and Shoreline Amphitheatre. Williams used the technology in his Something in the Water music festival, as did Beats by Dre Listening Parties. It’s also been tested at tech events such as TechCrunch Disrupt and Y-Combinator’s Demo Day.

The system, at least as now envisioned by Ruxin and the refocused company, will now be extended to numerous other use cases:

  • Giving concert goers a choice of mixes from a single performance, such as one focused on the singer, another on the guitarist, and a third on the keyboard player.
  • Providing conference goers the opportunity to monitor on-stage conversations in more than one room, or in another language than the original;
  • Play-by-play narration and statistical information for sporting and esports events;
  • Translations of lyrics in opera, theater and classical-music experiences;
  • Venue information for all kinds of events and institutions, such as museums providing an array of location-specific exhibition information.
  • Cross-language interpretation during live events on as many as 100 channels.

Other investors joining Foundry Group include venture-capital firms Sapphire Sport, Founders Fund, Defy Partners and Cowboy Ventures, as well as entertainment firms and figures Red Light Management, Another Planet Entertainment, Rick Farman and Rich Goodstone of Superfly, and Charlie Walker of C3. Foundry’s Ryan McIntyre will join the Mixhalo Board of Directors.



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