Techstars Adds Music Accelerator Led By Ex-Topspin, Twitter Music Exec Bob Moczydlowsky
Techstars, which specializes in helping startups in a variety of sectors, is adding music to it's portfolio. Heading the effort is former Topspin and Twitter Music executive Bob Moczydlowsky. Partnering in the effort are an impressive roster of top music companies, including 2 of the 3 major label groups.
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Respected former Topspin and Twitter Music executive Bob Moczydlowsky has been named managing director of a new music tech startup accelerator, Techstars Music. 10 year old Techstars has accelerators and startup programs in retail, healthcare, mobile and other verticals.
Partnering in the new effort are Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Sonos, Harmonix Music Systems, concert promoter Bill Silva and artist managers QPrime, Silva Artist Management and Era of the Engineer.
10 music related startups will be chosen for the inaugural 10 week class. In addition to an educational component, each will recieve a $100,000 convertible note and $20,000 in exchange for 6% of the startup’s common stock, as well as, mentorship from the partner companies.
Techstars joins music tech accelerator programs Abbey Road Red and Marathon Labs in the UK and Nashville's Project Music.
What Kind Of Startups Is Techstars Music Looking For?
With Spotify about to turn 10 and Pandora 17 , “it’s time for a successor” to disrupt the market, Moz told the Wall Street Journal.
Startups "creating new types copyright-management solutions, curation technology and new types of at-home and mobile-phone music experiences," are all interest Moz who added that he also doesn’t know of an app that makes it easy to send his friends via a messaging system or a that service recommends things like books based on musical tastes.
In other words, creative solutions turn heads. The world does not need another fill in the blank.
Some specific areas of interest include:
- Music experiences for home, festival, venue, mobile & connected devices
- Music & video creation, collaboration & sharing
- Direct-to-fan marketing & ecommerce
- Content infrastructure & delivery
- Royalties, rights management, reporting & licensing
- Data mining, machine learning & artificial intelligence
- Artist discovery & content curation
- Music education for digital native
How To Apply
The first class of Techstars Music will be held in LA starting in February, and the deadline to apply is December 11th. More info here.
