Today there are many incredible evolutions happening in music and technology; from VR and interactive performances to countless social media channels for new artists to push their music. The music industry is unrecognisable from 10 years ago and today we cannot imagine our lives without Spotify, Songkick or Soundcloud. Startups have changed the way we consume music and have paved the way for new opportunities to make, experience, and monetize music. Here are 10 European startups with the potential to disrupt the music industry:
Uberchord Engineering – The Berlin-based startup is transforming the way we learn musical instruments. Part of the Abbey Road Studios Accelerator Program, Uberchord engineering developed a new audio recognition technology and a completely new didactics to convey not only instrumental technique but also musical understanding through practical exercises. Their product, Uberchord Guitar is a mobile app, that not only tells you how to play a chord, but also corrects you when you make a mistake, learns your skill level and slowly increases the difficulty of the lessons as you improve.
The Best Song – Called Tinder for music discovery, Best song lets you swipe through song samples and adds them to your Spotify or Deezer collection. In a competitive space such as music discovery, The French startup Best Song provides an addictive user experience and a unique cross-platforms music catalogue, which can easily turn into a revolutionary tool for emerging artists. You can create your personal playlist, you can export this playlist to other music services and you can add friends to The Best Song and you will get their favorite tracks in your mix, as well.
Prizm – The French startup Prizm (Ubithings) is the first intelligent music player which serves as a speaker, streaming from multiple services, but most importantly, learns your preferences and serves up music accordingly. The device is in the form of triangular prism, connectable to smartphones over WiFi and controlled remotely. Once you create your profile, Prizm learns continuously from your taste, it remembers each one of your interactions so it would play the ideal song, based on who is around, the time of day, the atmosphere etc.
Stagelink – Winner in the marketing category of the startup competition at the Midem music festival in 2016, Berlin-based Stagelink provides a platform that allows performers and fans to work together to propose, plan, and promote tours. This fan-powered tour promoting service helps performers gather data on their fans to optimize where they should tour, which venues might be best, and what to charge for tickets. Quite easy to use: launch an online city poll, promote it on social media, scale the right venues and get the most of ticket sales.
Hello stage – Founded by the former director of the Wiener Konzerthaus, Hello Stage is an online community aiming to connect classical musicians to managers and promoters. The idea was to make the classical music market more transparent, by creating a portal that would launch and promote artists. Artists can create personalised web pages, featuring details of their repertoire and calendar, while artist managers can do the same for their roster. With its clever functionality, extensive capabilities and the sheer size of the platform, Hello stage is becoming the one stop shop for classical music lovers.
Singa – Created in 2013 by Slush-co-founder Atte Hujanen and other startup-pioneers from Finland, Singa is set to make karaoke great again. Removing the need to run expensive equipment for karaoke services, Singa’s product is a streaming service that offers an easy and affordable access to the world’s largest karaoke catalog. For consumers, this Helsinki-based startup offers native iOS, Android, Web, Apple TV & SmartTV apps, while for entertainment venues, Singa offers a pro-version, marketed as a modern, fully digital, commercial turn-key karaoke solution.
Flat – Flat is a online music notation software, which allows users to compose music scores online collaboratively. The idea behind the UK-based startup is to enable one single musical composition to be opened and edited in real time by multiple people using different devices at the same time. Create your score, choose “Share,” and invite people with “read” or “write” permissions to your score. Some of the features include: smart history, offline writing and generation of tablature from existing documents. The platform is fully integrated with Google Classroom and therefore able to create great music assignments and group activities.
Plugify – A team of music loving revolutionaries in the Netherlands created a platform which makes finding and booking a live artist or musician a lot easier. Founded n 2015, Plugify’s mission is to make booking live artists easy and giving artists the stage they deserve, without having to pay booking fee to old-fashioned intermediaries. It offers you the possibility of getting to know your live artist, listening to his/her work and making a safe booking through their website. Just plug & play!
Tradiio – The Lisbon- and Los Angeles-based startup provides a new platform that turns finding new musicians into a game and rewards you for making smart picks. Calling it the stock market for emerging artists, Tradiio lets users to actively engage with the music and support it directly, by investing in artists using virtual currency. Afterwards users who invest the most can win prizes like festival tickets, download store vouchers and other experiences that are impossible to imitate, like invitations to intimate shows with the artists they support. As for the artists, they get great exposure and possibility to connect directly to their fans.
MIND music lab – Named “Most Promising Music Startup of 2016” by the delegates of Midem, a leading trade fair for the music industry, MIND’s Music Labs mission is to improve the way musicians and their audience interact through music. The first product of the Stockholm-based company is Sensus SmartGuitar. It’s at the same time a guitar, a wireless digital audio workstation and a smart Internet of Things device. It boosts artists expressivity allowing them to add infinite modulations to their music, share their performances online in HD or take advantage of its connectivity to add new levels of interaction to live acts.
By the way: If you’re a corporate or investor looking for promising startups in a specific market for a potential investment or acquisition, check out our Startup Sourcing Service!
