Nir Zicherman and Michael Mignano, the co-founders of Anchor, which was sold to Spotify, are back with a new venture. Their latest project is Oboe, an AI-powered educational application that allows users to create lightweight and flexible learning courses on a wide array of topics by simply entering a prompt. The name “Oboe” is inspired by the Japanese word for “to learn.”
Zicherman and Mignano co-founded Oboe after departing from Spotify in October 2023. Zicherman’s inspiration for an AI educational product came from his experience scaling Spotify’s audiobooks business. Unlike AI chatbots, Oboe offers various formats, including text and visuals, audio courses, games, and interactive tests, eliminating the need for back-and-forth conversations.
For on-the-go learning, Oboe provides two audio formats: one structured like a university lecture and another resembling Google’s Notebook LM, with in-depth discussions between two hosts.
Zicherman describes Oboe’s core technology as a “complex, multi-agent architecture” built from scratch, with each part orchestrated to run in parallel to generate a course within seconds. Different agents are responsible for developing course architecture, verifying base material, writing scripts, and pulling in real images. Other agents audit the content for accuracy, quality, and personalization.
The courses are designed to be lightweight, engaging, and enjoyable. The team is also developing a recommendation engine for deeper topic exploration. Zicherman states, “the internet was built to grab our attention, not to teach effectively,” and Oboe aims to be a “one-stop shop to serve that intrinsic thirst for knowledge.”
At launch, users can access any existing course for free and create up to five courses per month without charge. Oboe offers two paid subscription tiers: Oboe Plus ($15/month for 30 additional courses) and Oboe Pro ($40/month for 100 courses). The service will initially be available on the web and mobile web, with native iOS and Android apps planned for the future.
Oboe’s core team consists of five full-time employees, including Zicherman. Michael Mignano serves on Oboe’s board and is a full-time partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. The startup has secured $4 million in seed funding, led by Eniac Ventures, which also led Anchor’s seed round. Additional investors include Haystack, Factorial Capital, Homebrew, Offline Ventures, Scott Belsky, Kayvon Beykpour, Nikita Bier, Tim Ferriss, and Matt Lieber.
