Ana Betancourt
Thol eliminates tedious event tracking for sound designers, clearing setup loops so they can spend more time creating iconic sound.
Project
TINIEAI
URL
linkedin.com/company/blackgoblin/
Year founded
2018
Business stage
Pre-seed
High-growth sectors
Digital and Technologies
Sector
Creative Industries
Location
Scotland
Funding
Funded Award Winner
The problem and opportunity
Manual setup traps sound designers, supervisors, and post-production studios in a costly operational bottleneck. Teams waste 50% of production schedules on non-creative session sorting and frame-by-frame event logging. This systemic friction drains studio margins and exhausts creative focus. Legacy spreadsheet-based alternatives fall short because video-contextual computer vision has only just now become viable to resolve it.
The solution and innovation
Thol delivers an advanced video analysis workflow that eliminates manual setup. Using computer vision, Thol identifies visual events in footage and delivers time-coded spotting lists directly for the timeline. It transforms hours of manual, repetitive labour into a swift review process, allowing designers to protect their creative time for narrative impact and the art of sound without replacing human intuition.
Market and ambition
Serving global post-production houses, broadcasters, and immersive studios. Since opening our beta in March, our community has grown rapidly to include Academy Award, Emmy, and BAFTA winners, alongside active pilot testing with teams at BBC R&D. Our ambition scales Thol into the standard global automation engine.
Founder perspective
For 15 years, as a sound designer, I’ve seen our community rely on taste and expertise to transport us to new worlds. Iconic sound, like Star Wars’ lightsabre, takes time. Manual, repetitive labour like cue markers mean less time to create and succeed. Thol is our quest to safeguard the sound design community worldwide.
Women in Innovation Award
Recipient of an Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award 2025/26, receiving funding, tailored business support, and access to specialist training and networks. View all winners and highly commended applicants from the Women in Innovation cohort 2025/2026.