QSIC

Company overview

Founded in 2012 in Melbourne, Australia by Matthew Elsley and Nick Larkins. US headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Elsley serves as CEO. The company has raised $50.5 million in total funding across two rounds, including a $25 million Series B in January 2025 led by Hedosophia. The Series B was framed explicitly around expanding the retail media network, not the music service.

QSIC reached a significant growth inflection in 2024 and 2025. In June 2025 the company hired David Haase, formerly CEO of the Americas for Epsilon Retail Media, as President of US Operations, and Artem Lavrinovich, formerly of CoolerX and Dunnhumby, as its first Chief Data and AI Officer. Both hires are retail media executives, not music industry veterans.

In March 2026 QSIC announced a partnership with Barrows Connected Store to synchronize in-store audio and digital video into a unified, data-driven retail media platform with closed-loop attribution tied to first-party retail transaction data.

What they sell

QSIC operates at two layers. The first is a commercially licensed music program for retail environments with AI-driven playlist management and dynamic volume adjustment based on ambient noise levels. The second, and more differentiated, layer is a retail media network built on top of the audio infrastructure. Retailers who deploy QSIC can sell audio advertising inventory to brands, delivered at the point of purchase.

QSIC has developed a proprietary generative AI model called Lucy that creates and localizes audio ad content in real time, incorporating store-level data including local pricing, inventory, and weather conditions. The 7-Eleven Gulp Radio program demonstrates the model in practice: QSIC powers in-store audio across all 7-Eleven, Speedway, and Stripes locations in the United States, reaching 13 million daily shoppers.

QSIC reports average sales lifts of up to 14% across retailers that have deployed the platform, with individual campaigns producing up to 58% uplift.

Pricing

QSIC does not publish pricing. Enterprise deployments are scoped based on location count, retail media network requirements, and integration complexity. The economic model for retailers deploying QSIC at advertising network scale is structurally different from a standard music service subscription, as a portion of the cost may be offset or exceeded by advertising revenue share.

Who they're best for

Enterprise retailers and QSR chains with large, high-traffic domestic footprints who are actively building or planning a retail media strategy. The buyer profile is not a facilities director looking for background music. It is a VP of retail media or a chief revenue officer asking how to monetize physical store traffic the way digital properties monetize web traffic. Convenience chains, grocery operators, QSRs, and fuel retailers are QSIC's natural verticals.

Considerations by buyer type

Buyers whose primary need is music, not media. If your organization needs a licensed background music program with no current interest in retail media monetization, QSIC is a more complex and likely more expensive solution than the need requires.

Smaller operators. QSIC's retail media model requires meaningful location scale to make the economics work for advertisers. Single-location and small chain operators are not the target.

Buyers outside QSIC's current geographic focus. QSIC is expanding aggressively in North America with Australian market presence. Buyers in other markets should verify current coverage before engaging.

Notable clients and track record

7-Eleven, Coles Express, and McDonald's are among QSIC's publicly named clients. The Gulp Radio deployment targeting full rollout across 12,000 stores is the company's most visible proof point. QSIC now reaches more than 350 million in-store shoppers monthly following the Barrows Connected Store partnership announced in March 2026.

The verdict

QSIC is the most strategically interesting company in the in-store media segment right now. The retail media network model is where the industry is heading, and QSIC is further down that road than any other pure-play in-store audio provider. For the right buyer, an enterprise retailer with a serious retail media agenda and a large domestic footprint, the conversation with QSIC is not about whether they have a good music catalog. It is about whether you want to turn your store network into an advertising asset. For buyers whose current priority is reliable background music at a predictable monthly cost, QSIC is solving a different problem than the one you have.