Meet Motlr, building silicon-agnostic infrastructure for connected audio devices

From left: Manjunath Velu (CTO), Lucas Pflueger Sanz (COO) and Niklas Gustafsson (CCO).

The problem

Audio devices are gaining the compute and connectivity to become intelligent systems in their own right. But OEMs still face fragmented software, firmware, connectivity, and cloud infrastructure across different audio silicon platforms and product generations.

The result is a product that remains fundamentally a commodity accessory, with much of its functionality and roadmap constrained by the mobile operating systems it depends on.

What Motlr does

Motlr provides a common, silicon-agnostic infrastructure layer that enables OEMs to build high-performance products with greater autonomy and advanced connectivity, and deploy those capabilities across product roadmaps without rebuilding the underlying stack for every product or silicon platform.

The decision

Rather than work around those constraints for one product, we decided to build the infrastructure that addresses them for the industry.

The Motlr founding team

How it started

The team originally came together to build a new brand of intelligent audio products.

They quickly found that the biggest constraints were in the underlying infrastructure: mobile OS dependency, fragmented silicon and services, limited wireless performance, long multi-vendor development cycles, and capabilities largely commoditized by what silicon vendors made available across competing brands.

Why this team

CCO Niklas Gustafsson is a serial entrepreneur and leads commercial strategy and industry development.

COO Lucas Pflueger Sanz leads fundraising, strategic partnerships, and OEM relationships.

CTO Manjunath Velu leads technical development and architecture, bringing expertise across embedded and distributed systems, AI, and wireless connectivity.

Why Sting

They joined Sting to accelerate Motlr's next stage of growth, challenge their assumptions with experienced perspectives, and sharpen their commercial and financing strategy.

They also value being part of a community of ambitious founders who have built and scaled technology companies before.

Motlr is one of 21 startups in Sting Core Fall 2026. Meet the rest of the cohort in Meet the 21 startups joining Sting this autumn.