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Sony Electronics Sells You the Camera - and Quietly Builds the Sensor Inside Your Phone
The San Diego electronics giant sells cameras, TVs and headphones at retail - and makes the tiny CMOS sensor behind most premium phone cameras. Here is how one company ended up on both sides of the counter.
Podeo
Podeo is a Dubai-based podcast platform that gives creators an end-to-end toolkit to record, host, produce, distribute and monetize their shows. Started in Beirut and now the largest podcast platform in the Middle East and North Africa, it has onboarded more than 100,000 creators reaching an audience of roughly 50 million listeners. Its distinguishing move is distribution beyond the usual apps - pushing audio into radio stations, airlines, ride-hailing, gaming and chat apps - paired with a programmatic advertising model that keeps the service free for creators while sharing revenue as their audiences grow.
LiveKit
LiveKit is an open-source platform and global edge network for building real-time voice, video, and physical AI applications. Born as a WebRTC media server for livestreaming and conferencing, it has grown into the infrastructure layer that lets AI agents see, hear, and speak with sub-100ms latency. Its technology powers ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode and is used by developers at OpenAI, xAI, Salesforce, Tesla, and Spotify, collectively facilitating billions of real-time calls each year.
xMEMS
xMEMS is a Santa Clara semiconductor company that builds sound and cooling out of silicon. Its piezoMEMS platform produces the world's first solid-state MEMS loudspeakers - all-silicon drivers with no moving voice coils - for earbuds, hearing aids, AI glasses and headphones, and the first 'fan-on-a-chip' active micro-cooling device that moves air inside phones, wearables and AI data-center optics. Founded in 2018, the company holds more than 300 patents and has raised roughly $129M across four rounds.
Barometer
Barometer is a New York-based adtech company that uses AI to make podcast and digital-audio advertising safer and more precise. Its Brand Integrity Cloud transcribes and analyzes podcast episodes for content, sentiment and risk, scoring them against the GARM framework and IAB contextual taxonomy so advertisers can plan campaigns, avoid unsuitable content, and target episodes at scale. The company powers episode-level brand suitability for platforms including Spotify's Ad Exchange on The Trade Desk and Acast.
DIVE Studios
DIVE Studios is a Los Angeles-based digital media company built around Korean entertainment and global K-pop fandom. Founded in 2019 by brothers Brian, Eric, and Eddie Nam, it produces artist-led podcasts and video shows - including the flagship Daebak Show with Eric Nam - plus original talk, game, and travel series. The company reaches tens of millions of monthly viewers worldwide, runs the DIVE X creator and influencer agency for brands, and spun out Mindset, a celebrity-narrated mental-health audio platform.
Brian Nam
Brian Nam is the co-founder and CEO of DIVE Studios, a Gen Z media company born from K-pop and built for global fandoms. A former Division I soccer recruit and finance-track Columbia grad, he walked away from an elite private equity offer to build a podcast network with his brother, the K-pop star Eric Nam. DIVE has grown into a multi-platform media company spanning Seoul and Los Angeles, with hit shows like The Daebak Show, hundreds of millions of views, and a wellness app, Mindset. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.
Deepgram
Deepgram builds foundational voice AI - speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and full voice-agent APIs - used by more than 1,300 enterprises including NASA, Spotify, Twilio and Citibank to give machines the ability to listen, understand, and respond in real time.
DSP Concepts
DSP Concepts is the Silicon Valley audio software company behind Audio Weaver, the embedded audio development platform that powers more than 50 million devices, from Tesla cabins and GoPro cameras to Amazon Alexa-built-in microphones and the first single-SoC Dolby Atmos soundbar.
Harry Morton
Harry Morton is the founder and CEO of Lower Street, a globally recognised branded podcast agency headquartered in the UK. Since founding Lower Street in 2016, he has grown the company into an award-winning, fully remote team of 30+ creatives producing nearly 10,000 episodes across 140+ podcasts for clients like Fidelity, Pepsi, Adobe, BCG, and Stanford Seed. In 2024 he acquired Pacific Content, one of the most storied names in branded podcasting, cementing Lower Street's position at the top of the industry. He is also the founder of the Brand Podcast Summit and the Singletrack mountain biking retreat for bootstrapped founders.
Shokz OpenFit Pro
Shokz OpenFit Pro are open-ear earbuds that pull off something most audiophiles thought impossible - noise reduction without sealing your ears. Launched at CES 2026, they combine a SuperBoost dual-diaphragm driver, Dolby Atmos with head tracking, 50 hours of battery life, and a triple-microphone array that quietly tamps down background noise while keeping you aware of your surroundings. Built for athletes, office workers, and anyone who refuses to sacrifice situational awareness for sound quality.
ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs is an AI research and product company that builds human-like voice technology. Founded in 2022 by two Polish engineers frustrated by badly dubbed movies, it grew from zero to $200M ARR in three years and reached an $11 billion valuation by February 2026. Its platform covers text-to-speech, voice cloning, AI dubbing, conversational agents, and speech-to-text across 70+ languages, used by everyone from independent creators to over 60% of Fortune 500 companies.