- The Icelandic startup Treble has raised $18 million in its Series A-2 funding round, led by Paladin Capital Group.
- The company develops cloud-based software that models how sound travels through various spaces and generates labelled audio data from digital twins, eliminating the need for manual recordings.
- The acoustic simulation platform offered by Treble enables companies such as Amazon and Logitech to test how their products sound before they are manufactured.
Finnur Pind was brought up in a family involved in the study of sound. His father, Jörgen Pind, researched how the human ear can distinguish one syllable from another. Finnur then studied wave physics at the Technical University of Denmark and later established Treble Technologies, a company that develops machine hearing solutions.
The Icelandic startup has now raised $18 million to expand its operations into robotics, wearables, and other mobile listening devices.
Paladin Capital Group led the Series A-2 round, with continued support from KOMPAS VC, Frumtak Ventures, and the European Innovation Council Fund. This follows Treble’s €11 million Series A in September 2024.
Simulating rooms rather than recording them
Finnur Pind, the CEO, and Jesper Pedersen, the Chief Product Officer, founded Treble in Reykjavík in early 2020. The duo are acoustic engineers and first met while conducting research on sound simulation at DTU.
The company develops cloud-based software that models how sound travels through various spaces and generates labelled audio data from digital twins, eliminating the need for manual recordings. This enables companies such as Amazon to check how a device sounds in thousands of different homes without having to construct any actual ones.
Wontak Kim, Amazon’s senior audio research manager, stated, “Treble provides an accurate and scalable way to model those environments. It allows us to virtually assess audio quality and performance and evaluate scenarios that are difficult to reproduce through physical testing alone. Its platform and expertise have made Treble a trusted partner and a valuable extension of our team.”
Andy Harper from Logitech, who is in charge of audio AI and signal processing, added, “Treble allows us to accurately simulate complex acoustic environments that are difficult to reproduce or test at scale in the real world. Crucially, the fidelity of the underlying physics gives us confidence in those simulations, enabling stronger engineering conclusions and ultimately better-performing products.”
Famous programs such as Ansys and COMSOL Multiphysics have acoustic modelling built into their broader engineering packages, and room acoustics software such as ODEON is used by architects and consultants. However, these tools do not produce the vast quantities of labelled, sensor-specific training data that robotics and voice-AI teams require.
Treble aims to address this gap as it moves from work in architecture and product design to what it calls physical AI.
The ability of physical AI to understand sound is still limited
Between August 2025 and July 2026, humanoid robots and other physical AI systems raised $8.7 billion in disclosed equity, with the majority directed towards vision and manipulation rather than sound. The voice AI agent market is projected to grow from $2.4 billion in 2024 to $47.5 billion by 2034.
François Ruether from Paladin noted, “The Treble team has developed a simulation platform designed to help physical AI models and robots integrate visual and auditory inputs. This multimodal capability will be essential to making robots more useful, productive and safe in human environments. We are excited to support the company’s global expansion and to work alongside visionaries behind this differentiated approach to acoustic intelligence.”
Pind stated that the funding round had been aimed at this particular issue: “AI models and devices that perform well in a laboratory can struggle when they encounter reverberation, background noise, or an unfamiliar physical environment.”
So far, progress in physical AI has been driven by vision. It is not yet clear whether sound perception will become the next major field, or whether a small startup from Reykjavík, such as Treble, will be able to stay ahead if larger companies like Nvidia or Amazon enter the race.
