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Seattle-based SoundCommerce, a operations data platform provider, has named Meredith Han as chief operating officer. her work background includes a tenure at Amazon.com where she helped launch the health and personal car business.  SoundCommerce’s backers included Defy Partners, Voyager Capital, Stage Venture Partners and Kick-Start Partners.

Operations data platform provider SoundCommerce announced today the appointment of industry expert Meredith Han as the company’s Chief Operating Officer responsible for SoundCommerce technology products, value added services, and core company operations. Han is a veteran technology product and direct-to-consumer commerce executive with tenure at Amazon.com where she helped launch the health & personal care business; Kosmix, acquired by…

CEO Marc Ruxin said: “Mixhalo envisions a world where everyone experiences great live audio, regardless of their seat or ticket cost. We are democratizing sound at live events.

Mixhalo is one of the music/tech startups that was actually founded by professional musicians: violinist Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger and Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger. The startup claims to be “democratising audio at live events” by streaming top-notch audio to people’s smartphones.

Here’s how it works. Mixhalo is an app that beams a perfect audio from the stage directly to your smartphone. The app also allows you to switch between the feeds from individual musicians. If you want to focus on just what the guitarist or the drummer? No problem. Just tune them in.

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.

Mixhalo — the startup co-founded by Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger and his wife, violinist Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger — has raised $10.7 million in Series A funding.

The company’s initial goal was to bring better sound quality to concerts. Instead of hearing music blasted out of speakers, users can connect their smartphone to a network (the startup creates its own wireless channel that doesn’t rely on the venue’s potentially overloaded Wi-Fi or cell networks). Then, through their earbuds, they’ll hear the same sound mix that the musicians receive through their in-ear monitors.

“What if you could stream a live concert directly from the soundboard to your phone using your own headphones?” Um, yes please!

So, if you imagine you’re at a college football game and want to listen to the play-by-play, there’s no way the stadium can pass out 100,000 radio kits. For me, it was the breadth of the vision. Imagine a world where, in theory, you don’t need PA systems. It’s a really big idea. That’s where…

Mixhalo is the brainchild of Michael Einziger, who is better known as the guitarist, co-founder and songwriter of Incubus. Einziger has been using headphones on stage for decades to better monitor his band’s sound during challenging live venue conditions, explained Mixhalo CEO Marc Ruxin in an interview with Variety this week. At one point, he had an epiphany,…