sound-design
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You've Played Their Games. You've Never Heard Their Name.
Side, formerly PTW, is the roughly 3,200-person, 40-studio contractor that tests, translates, voices, and co-builds games for Activision, Ubisoft, and EA - then hands over the credit.
Quinn
Quinn is a Santa Monica-based audio erotica platform - often described as a 'Spotify for erotica' - that turns intimate, narrative-driven stories into 15-to-20-minute immersive audio experiences. Founded by Caroline Spiegel and built primarily for women and underserved audiences, Quinn pairs a creator-driven content marketplace with an ever-growing roster of professional voice actors and Hollywood celebrities. With roughly 300,000 users, over 900,000 TikTok followers, and around $5M in annual recurring revenue, it has reframed adult content around imagination, storytelling, and discreet listening rather than the visual mainstream.
Output Inc.
Output is a Los Angeles-based music technology company that builds software instruments, effects, and AI-assisted tools for musicians, producers, and sound designers. Founded in 2013 by composer Gregg Lehrman, its plugins - including the cloud-connected sampler Arcade and the AI-powered Co-Producer - have shaped records by Drake, Justin Bieber, Coldplay and Rihanna, as well as scores for Stranger Things and Game of Thrones. The company bootstrapped for seven years before raising a $45M Series A from Summit Partners in 2020.
Gregg Lehrman
Gregg Lehrman is the founder and CEO of Output, the Los Angeles music software company whose plugins and instruments turn up in records by Billie Eilish, Beyonce, Coldplay, Kendrick Lamar and scores like Stranger Things and Game of Thrones. A Cornell-trained composer who cut his teeth assisting Hans Zimmer and became Universal Publishing's youngest executive producer at 26, Lehrman built Output in 2013 because the creative tools he wanted as a working musician did not yet exist. He bootstrapped the company for seven years before raising a $45M Series A from Summit Partners in 2020, and built Arcade, one of the first cloud-based music plugins.