How LA-Based Super Hi-Fi Hopes to Change Streaming Audio Using AI

Sam Blake

Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake

How LA-Based Super Hi-Fi Hopes to Change Streaming Audio Using AI
  • Super Hi-Fi's AI transports the skills of a trained radio DJ to digital music playlists. Spotify's former head of research Tristan Jehan recently joined as an advisor
  • Founded in 2018 by veterans of the digital music business, the company's customers include iHeartMedia, Sonos, Peloton and Octave Music Group
  • Its leaders envision a new audio listening experience — where everyone has a personalized, curated playlist, with artful, AI-generated sequences and layers of music, voice clips (e.g. news and podcasts), and branded messaging that drives new revenues to the music industry

Before the beat from "Baby Got Back" that underpins Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" fades to silence at the song's end, a sound clip pops up, right on rhythm and with a similar energy, telling the listener what streaming service they're listening to. A new track seamlessly takes the baton from the Minaj song before the brief branded message concludes, and continues the upbeat mood as a music bed for a rapid sequence of audio clips – first a voice imploring listeners to get hyped, then a word from Kanye about his interview with Beyoncé, a snippet from that interview, and another in-the-spirit advert – before blending into the intro of the next song, Kanye's "Stronger": all of it interwoven as if it were a single track produced in a recording studio.


It is the automation of this art, once the preserve of skilled radio DJs, that Super Hi-Fi is bringing to the digital music industry. In doing so, the L.A.-based company thinks it can help music services and artists make more money, and give listeners a new and improved way of experiencing audio.

Super Hi-Fi's customers include iHeartMedia,

Founded in 2018 by a group of digital music business veterans, with customers that include iHeartMedia and Sonos, SHF recently announced that Tristan Jehan – a pioneer of applying AI and machine learning to music, most recently as head of Spotify's research team – has joined the company as an advisor.

Streaming, which has been powered in part by Jehan's work on recommendation algorithms, may have saved the music industry from piracy-fueled devastation, but Super Hi-Fi's founders believe companies like Spotify, Apple and Amazon have missed the mark in some important ways.

"We think digital services forgot that the primary user interface is your eardrums, not your eyeballs," Zack Zalon, Super Hi-Fi's chief executive, told dot.LA.

As a result, a listener cannot readily distinguish one service from another, he said. Visual branding can help, but especially as smart speakers grow more popular, listeners will have an increasingly difficult time knowing whether they are tuned in to Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora or any other service.

Zalon and Brendon Cassidy, another co-founder and Super Hi-Fi's chief technology officer, both built digital radio services for CBS, AOL, Yahoo and Cricket Wireless. They contrast the uniformity of streaming services to broadcast radio stations. Two stations in the same city, focusing on the same type of music, still tend to have their own personality, they say.

"It's not just the music," Zalon said. "It's the space between the songs that the radio stations are filling and (thereby) connecting with listeners in an emotional way."

Beyond differentiating the source of the sound, SHF believes that using the space between songs — as radio stations do — can transform the listening experience. Leaving aside stitching in voice clips and layering in all other kinds of audio, they say that even sequencing songs together is fraught with issues.

The two most common types of transitions that digital services use between songs are crossfading and brief pauses.

Pauses create dead air, which iHeartMedia's chief product officer Chris Williams told dot.LA is the "enemy of radio," because it takes listeners out of their flow and puts them in a position to make a decision: namely, whether to keep listening or not. "I want to minimize that," Williams said.

As for crossfading – which Zalon said tends to be applied uniformly across tracks, such as a six-second blend of the end of one song with the start of the next, irrespective of the songs' particulars – it doesn't always work. Williams said crossfading can be done without jarring the user or disrespecting the songs about 50% of the time, and ever less so as longer song lead-ins give way to snappy intros aimed at grabbing listeners' attention from the first note.

"Crossfades create crashes," he said.

A radio DJ, by contrast, is trained to avoid these issues.

"The techniques of trained radio DJs are pretty complicated," Zalon said. "Super Hi-Fi is AI that has all the skills of a trained radio DJ."

This AI is designed to help customers like iHeart provide listeners with custom playlists that artfully blend one song with the next – no matter which song it is – and incorporate additional sonic elements like branded logos, interview clips, voice segments and more to eliminate dead air while respecting the artistry of the underlying songs, and to potentially drive streaming revenues back up to or beyond the levels that CDs generated in their peak.

How Does It Work?

As Super Hi-Fi's first customer, iHeartMedia helped the company fine tune its AI model and algorithms.

"Their pool of some of the world's best music programmers and on-air DJs became in a way like our QA partners," Zalon said.

By now Super Hi-Fi has "fingerprinted" iHeart's entire music catalog – tens of millions of tracks, Williams said – to identify the songs' underlying characteristics: features like volume, rhythm, mood, vocal texture, tempo and more. Lots more.

"The data we have on the music takes up more file space than the music itself," Zalon said.

Super Hi-Fi's AI has also fingerprinted each of iHeart's 700 styles of sonic logo; there's a country version of the "You are listening to iHeart…", a hip-hop version, a reggae version, and so on.

So, too, with any audio file that any customer may want to include in a playlist.

"The real power of the AI is to understand all the content with enough depth to make pretty much any output decision that any service might want," Zalon said.

Results have been good for iHeart. Williams reported that since they've rolled out Super Hi-Fi across their streaming services, the company has seen listening durations double.

"That increases ad impressions," he said. "There are clear business upside reasons beyond aesthetically creating a better experience...and [achieving] clear differentiation [from competitors]."

The Next Song

After having recently reeled in Sonos and its new streaming service as a customer, Super Hi-Fi has its sights set on bigger streaming fish. Jehan may help them get to Spotify, and they'll also look to Apple Music.

Chief business officer John Bolton told dot.LA that Spotify's expansion into podcasts makes them a prime candidate to benefit from Super Hi-Fi's service. He pointed to their "Your Daily Drive" product – a mix of music they know listeners like and relevant news – and said he could see that sort of playlist growing to include podcast snippets, the weather, and various other forms of audio, all tailored to the listener's preferences and location.

"If we see this happen at scale you'll start to see listening experiences become something very different," said Bolton, who helped found Super Hi-Fi after leaving ByteDance, which acquired his social media-meets-music startup Flipagram.

Streaming platforms may well be working on their own blended-audio AI solutions, but Williams says iHeart has benefited by getting in with Super Hi-Fi early.

"Two years from now everyone should have this solution or some version but we'll have already taken this to the next step, so it gives me the opportunity to get ahead," he said.

Music lawyer Ed Buggé, partner at L.A.-based entertainment law firm Hertz Lichtenstein & Young, thinks Super Hi-Fi "could be an attractive target for digital streaming platforms (DSPs) as they look to differentiate their platform offerings."

Spotify's former chief economist agreed. Will Page said a major audio streamer could look to Super Hi-Fi as a way to stand out in a market of look-alike services competing for the same customers.

"All these services offer the same 60 million tracks for the same $9.99 price point. With so much similarity, the value of distinctiveness goes up," he said. "The end game could see it being acquired by a DSP."

More than Music

Even if Super Hi-Fi doesn't lure the big catches in streaming, it can serve other verticals, including digital fitness. Peloton is already a customer.

"They wanted something different," Zalon said. "They want to make sure there's no loss of energy between songs; there's nothing worse than having music drop off in the middle of a workout. So we've been working with them on the roadmap to use the AI to help create an exercise experience that never loses its energy." In addition to blending songs, this will include voice-over instructions from Peloton's instructors.

Retail music is another area the company's targeting. Octave Music Groups, which operates Apple Music for Business and manages the music that customers hear at Starbucks, along with many other bars, restaurants and stores throughout North America and Europe, is another Super Hi-Fi customer.

Just as a radio station manager works with a DJ to set ground rules for branding the station through its sonic choices – running a branded message every 15 minutes, a news break every 30, and keeping segues tight but breezy, for example – each customer works with Super Hi-Fi to customize the AI to fit its desired style.

In exchange for this AI-plus-support service, Super Hi-Fi receives a licensing fee. The company would not disclose its prices or finances, though Bolton said Super Hi-Fi has not raised any outside funding.

He thinks using AI to bring a new level of real-time curation, presentation and personalization can attract more advertising and subscription revenues to the music industry. That's all the more important in an era when live performance has evaporated.

    "We have a big, bold vision and tech that can transform playlists into listening experiences that we think will eventually make the industry much more money and provide a much better product for consumers," he said.

    ---

    Sam Blake primarily writes about media and entertainment for dot.LA. Find him on Twitter at @hisamblake and email him at samblake@dot.LA

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    samblake@dot.la
    The $260M Robot Revolution Happening in Torrance

    🔦 Spotlight

    Hello Los Angeles,

    Forget rockets. This week, the loudest move in the defense tech scene came from a factory floor in Torrance, where Hadrian secured $260 million to fuel its robot-run revolution.

    The company, which builds AI-powered, robot-run factories for America’s aerospace and defense industries, announced the massive Series C raise, led by existing investors like Lux Capital and Founders Fund, along with a factory expansion loan facility arranged by Morgan Stanley. The funding will power Hadrian’s third factory (in Arizona), unlock full product manufacturing, and accelerate its mission to bring American manufacturing roaring back faster, smarter, and more automated than ever.

    And here’s what makes them fascinating: Hadrian isn’t just churning out parts. They’re reinventing what a factory is. Their facilities look more like giant humming circuit boards than the smokestacks of old, packed with robots, AI, and ambition to move at the speed of software.

    It’s the kind of vision you’d expect from a founder who speaks about reshoring U.S. manufacturing as if it were a moral obligation and then backs it up with billion-dollar contracts and steel-and-silicon proof.

    We’ll be watching closely to see what Hadrian assembles next. One thing’s certain: the robots are already working overtime, and if you’re smart (or a robot whisperer), you might want to join them.

    🤝 Venture Deals

    LA Companies

    • Boulevard, a SaaS startup that helps salons and self-care businesses manage scheduling and operations, has raised an $80M Series D led by JMI Equity at a valuation near $800M. The funding will fuel enhancements to its AI-powered scheduling tools and support continued product innovation and market expansion. - learn more
    • Rwazi has raised $12M in Series A funding to expand its AI-powered decision-making platform, which helps businesses replace gut-based decisions with real-time insights and simulations based on consumer behavior. The round was led by Bonfire Ventures and will support the growth of Rwazi’s simulation engine and data infrastructure to help companies make more precise, data-driven decisions across marketing, product, and operations. - learn more
    • Lexington Bakes, an artisan bakery known for its gluten-free, organic oat bars and luxury brownies, has raised $1M in a seed round. The investment was led by Rainfall Ventures. The funding will help the company transition to co-manufacturing, expand its retail reach from about 100 to a projected 1,000 doors in the next year, and scale up its team and operations. - learn more

    LA Venture Funds

    • TCG (The Chernin Group) participated in Substack’s latest $100M funding round, joining Andreessen Horowitz, and other investors. Their investment underscores confidence in Substack’s vision to grow its subscription publishing platform and expand its tools for independent writers and creators. - learn more
    • Acre Venture Partners participated in Zucca’s $5M funding round to help the Seattle startup scale its platform, which uses AI to design and develop plant-based food products faster and more efficiently. Their investment will support Zucca’s mission to create sustainable, health-focused foods and expand its operations. - learn more
    • Sound Ventures joined XMTP’s $80M Series B to back its vision of redefining how people communicate in the web3 world. With this funding, XMTP plans to scale its decentralized, privacy-focused messaging protocol, enabling secure, wallet-to-wallet conversations across the blockchain ecosystem. - learn more
    • Morpheus Ventures and Sage Venture Partners participated in Datavations’ $17M Series A funding round, with Morpheus joining as a new investor and Sage returning as an existing backer. Datavations, an AI-driven analytics platform for the building materials and home improvement industries, uses machine learning to deliver actionable insights on pricing, inventory, assortment, and supply chains. The funds will be used to grow the team, accelerate development of its Commerce Alert Hub, and expand its presence across North America. - learn more
    • Mucker Capital led the $3.3M seed round for Bidbus, an AI-powered consumer-to-dealer used car marketplace in the U.S. The platform enables car owners to auction their vehicles online and receive competing offers from dealers, while dealers gain access to high-quality inventory more efficiently. The funding will help Bidbus enhance its AI capabilities and expand into new markets. - learn more
    • Creative Artists Agency (CAA) participated as a strategic investor in Moonvalley’s $84M funding round, signaling strong industry confidence in the company’s development of a fully licensed, AI-powered video generation platform tailored for professional filmmakers and studios. CAA’s investment reinforces Moonvalley’s commitment to ethical AI practices and provides it with a direct pipeline to top-tier creative talent and entertainment partners. - learn more
    • MANTIS Venture Capital joined Zip Security’s $13.5M Series A funding round, backing the company's mission to deliver automated, AI-driven cybersecurity and compliance solutions. Their participation supports Zip’s efforts to expand its engineering team, build deeper platform integrations, and scale into regulated industry verticals like defense, finance, and healthcare. - learn more
    • Rebel Fund participated in Apolink’s oversubscribed $4.3M seed round, joining other notable backers such as Y Combinator and 468 Capital. By investing in this 19‑year‑old–led space tech startup, Rebel Fund is supporting Apolink’s mission to deliver continuous LEO satellite connectivity and facilitate its planned demo missions and constellation build‑out. - learn more

      LA Exits
      • Retina AI is to be acquired by Onar in a deal that will enhance Onar’s AI-powered customer analytics and personalization offerings. By integrating Retina’s predictive customer lifetime value technology, Onar aims to provide businesses with deeper insights into customer behavior and more precise targeting. The acquisition highlights Onar’s commitment to delivering data-driven solutions for optimizing customer relationships. - learn more
      • Nearsure, a U.S.-based tech services company with over 600 professionals across 18 Latin American countries, has been acquired by Nortal to bolster its AI and enterprise solutions in the Americas. Known for its AI-driven transformation, custom software, and partnerships with major platforms, Nearsure will merge into Nortal’s U.S. operations and rebrand later this year. The acquisition allows Nearsure to expand into U.S. and European markets while enhancing its AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise offerings. - learn more
      • InsideOut Sports & Entertainment, the event production company behind high‑profile sports events like The Pickleball Slam, Pro Padel League, and Major League Pickleball, has been acquired by GSE Worldwide, marking GSE’s first foray into live event production. Founded by tennis legend Jim Courier and Jon Venison, who will now serve as EVP and head of the new GSE Productions division, InsideOut’s team will integrate into GSE to help scale its live-event operations into new markets. - learn more

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        From Sunset Boulevard to Outer Space: LA’s Latest

        🔦 Spotlight

        Good Morning Beliebers and Los Angeles!

        While Justin Bieber’s new album dropped last night, here’s what else is making headlines in Los Angeles this week.

        Luma has opened its Dream Lab on Sunset Boulevard, boldly positioning itself at the forefront of AI-powered creativity. Known for transforming ordinary photos into cinematic 3D scenes, Luma is combining cutting-edge research with practical tools to build a playground for artists, engineers, and anyone ready to push the boundaries of visual storytelling. In their words: “From Hollywood blockbusters to the next generation of immersive media, this is where the magic happens.”

        Meanwhile, well beyond our skyline, SpaceX reportedly hit an eye-popping $400 billion valuation in a recent share sale, making it one of the most valuable private companies ever. The milestone reflects both investors’ fervor for the commercial space race and LA’s unrivaled role as the launchpad of aerospace innovation.

        LA continues to prove it can deliver on the ground, in the cloud, and far beyond the stars. See you next week.

        🤝 Venture Deals

        LA Companies

           
        • Varda Space Industries, the El Segundo–based company manufacturing pharmaceuticals in microgravity, has raised $187M in a Series C round led by Natural Capital and Shrug Capital, bringing its total funding to approximately $329M. The funds will support an increased launch cadence of robotic drug-production capsules, expansion of its El Segundo lab for biologic drug crystallization, and broader efforts to scale commercial microgravity-driven drug formulation and hypersonic reentry testing. - learn more

        LA Venture Funds

        • Rebel Fund participated in Vellum’s $20M Series A round, which was led by Leaders Fund. The company helps businesses build and optimize LLM-powered applications. Vellum plans to grow its team and speed up product development with the new funding. - learn more
        • Bold Capital participated in a $31M Series B funding round for Aqtual, a Hayward, California based precision medicine startup developing a cutting edge cell free DNA (cfDNA) multiomics platform. The capital will help commercialize Aqtual’s flagship rheumatoid arthritis diagnostic, currently being tested in a 1,300 patient trial, and support expansion into other chronic and autoimmune diseases. - learn more
        • Strong Ventures invested in VERAMORE, a skincare brand focused on addressing early signs of aging in women. Since launching in March 2022, VERAMORE has grown over 300% annually, expanded to more than 16 products, and entered markets including Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, Europe, and Korea. The funding will support its D2C growth, product-driven marketing, and planned global expansion starting with Japan in 2025 and the U.S. and Europe in 2026. - learn more
        • Mucker Capital joined a $3.7M seed funding round for Velvet Capital aimed at launching its DeFAI operating system and $VELVET governance token. Velvet’s vertically integrated DeFi toolkit combines AI-powered trading, portfolio management, APIs, and a native token to streamline on-chain investment for funds, DAOs, and individual traders. The funding will accelerate platform development, the rollout of its tokenomics, and broader adoption of its intent-based DeFi suite. - learn more
        • Btech Consortium Fund participated in a $8.5M Series A funding round for Castellum.AI, a New York based financial crime compliance platform that uses in‑house risk data, AI, and screening tools to help financial institutions manage AML/KYC compliance. The funds will be used to expand their team, enhance integrations with financial institutions, and accelerate adoption of their AI‑powered compliance solutions. - learn more
        • Bold Capital Partners joined the oversubscribed $45M Series A round for Centivax, a South San Francisco biotech company dedicated to developing a universal flu vaccine using a proprietary mRNA-based immune-engineering platform. Led by Future Ventures, the funding will help Centivax advance its lead candidate into Phase I clinical trials and expand its broader universal immunity pipeline targeting pathogens like RSV, HIV, and malaria. - learn more
        • Alpha Edison participated in Honor Education’s $38M Series A funding round for the San Francisco–based learning platform. Honor uses AI‑enhanced, mobile-first courses and credentialed programs to improve engagement and leadership development. The funding will be used to scale AI capabilities, personalize learning experiences, and expand the company’s operations and customer‑success teams to meet rising demand. - learn more
        • Wasserman Ventures participated in a $7M seed round for Fantasy Life, the fantasy sports platform founded by Matthew Berry. The funding will support the launch of Fantasy Life’s revamped platform, featuring new “Guillotine Leagues,” a modernized app experience, and enhanced content and tools to scale its audience and technology offerings. - learn more

        LA Exits
        • El Segundo based Kaye Capital Management, a fee only RIA with approximately $700M in assets under management and $300M in assets under advisement, was acquired by Modern Wealth Management, marking its 17th acquisition and pushing its total AUM over $8.5B. The deal strengthens Modern Wealth’s presence in California and adds Kaye’s institutional retirement plan expertise to its suite of financial and retirement solutions for clients. - learn more
        • NIRx Medical Technologies was acquired by Gilde Healthcare’s private equity fund and combined with Artinis Medical Systems to form a world-leading neuroimaging group. Both companies will retain their brands and locations while collaborating on R&D, product development, and global expansion of their functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) tools to advance research in mental health, neurodegenerative diseases, and stroke rehabilitation. - learn more
        • Emotive, a conversational SMS marketing platform, has been acquired by Privy to create a unified solution for e-commerce brands that combines email, SMS, pop-ups, and real-time customer conversations. The integrated platform will help over 10,000 merchants simplify their marketing, personalize customer interactions, and strengthen relationships with dedicated strategists and transparent pricing. - learn more

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        Tinder, Starlink, and Apple’s New Studio: This Week in LA

        🔦 Spotlight

        Happy Independence Day, Los Angeles! 🇺🇸

        While you're celebrating freedom, here are some electrifying updates lighting up LA’s tech, satellite, and music scenes:

        🔥 Tinder mandates Face Recognition in California

          Image Source: Tinder

        Tinder is now requiring all new users in California to complete a biometric face check, a brief video selfie processed via FaceTec, to verify profiles are genuine. The video is deleted post-verification, though an encrypted face map remains while the account is active. This West Hollywood based move could redefine trust, safety, and privacy in mainstream consumer apps.

        🌐 Starlink clears hurdle to launch in India

        Elon Musk’s SpaceX backed Starlink has cleared most regulatory and licensing hurdles with India’s Department of Telecommunications, marking a key step toward launching satellite broadband in one of the world’s fastest growing markets. Final approvals from the national space regulator are pending, and services, expected to deliver high speed connectivity to underserved regions, could launch in the coming months. This is a major milestone for Starlink’s global expansion.

        🎧 Apple Music opens Culver City creative hub

          Image Source: Apple

        Apple Music is celebrating its anniversary by launching a brand new 15,000 square foot, three story studio in Culver City. The facility, featuring a 4,000 square foot soundstage, spatial audio suites, podcast booths, and more, is designed by Eric Owen Moss and slated to open mid August. It solidifies LA’s reputation as a creative powerhouse and reaffirms Apple’s commitment to investing in and nurturing our city's cultural ecosystem.

        From dating apps to deep space to sound stages, LA isn’t just watching the future unfold, we’re building it.

        Here’s to independence, imagination, and everything this city dares to launch next. Happy Fourth, Los Angeles.

        🤝 Venture Deals

        LA Companies

        • Castelion has raised a $350M Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners alongside Altimeter Capital to scale its hypersonic missile production capabilities. The El Segundo-based defense startup plans to use the funds to expand manufacturing, accelerate testing through its SpaceX-inspired rapid development model, and position itself as a cost-effective supplier of hypersonic weapons to the U.S. military and its allies. - learn more
        • Earth Sama, a Calabasas, California–based climate-tech platform that helps rural farming and Indigenous communities generate and manage carbon credits, secured investment from Omtse Ventures. The funding will support the rollout of Earth Sama’s blockchain-powered field app, climate-creator platform, and smart-contract tools to scale community-led carbon credit projects globally under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6.4 framework. - learn more

                  LA Venture Funds

                  • Plassa Capital participated in Metafide’s $3.275M funding round. Miami based Metafide, the creator of SURGE, a gamified trading platform that combines AI neural networks and human insight, will use the funds to scale and launch SURGE into the market. - learn more
                  • BOLD Capital Partners participated as a founding investor in Syntis Bio’s $33M Series A round, with an additional $5M in NIH grants. The Boston-based biotech is developing oral therapies for obesity and rare diseases, and the funding will help advance its SYNT platform, moving its lead obesity treatment, SYNT-101, into Phase 1 trials and supporting development of SYNT-202 for homocystinuria. - learn more
                  • BAM Ventures participated in Cred’s $15M seed round for its predictive intelligence startup. San Francisco based Cred uses AI to unify company data with real time market signals and deliver actionable insights for sales and operations. The funding, led by defy.vc, will be used to scale Cred’s platform, expand its customer base, and grow team and product capabilities. - learn more
                  • BOLD Capital Partners participated in Gallant’s $18M Series B round to advance its ready-to-use stem cell therapies for pets. The funding, led by Digitalis Ventures with additional support from NovaQuest Capital, will help Gallant bring its off-the-shelf regenerative treatments to market. - learn more
                  • Rebel Fund joined the seed round for Rocketable, contributing to the $6.5M raised to build a portfolio of fully automated SaaS companies. San Francisco-based Rocketable, backed by True Ventures and others, uses AI agents to operate acquired software products, and Rebel’s support will help scale both the platform and acquisitions. - learn more 
                          LA Exits
                          • Leasepath, a cloud-first provider of equipment lease and loan management software, has been acquired by Solifi to enhance its mid-market offerings. The deal allows Solifi to expand Leasepath’s Microsoft Dynamics-based platform into new global markets while keeping Leasepath’s team and leadership in place. - learn more

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