The Music Industry Blog StartUp Showcase is an opportunity for early stage music start-ups to get valuable exposure and feedback. The 2012 intake of the Start-Up Showcase have now been judged and the full list of finalists are below. The winners announcement can be found here. Scroll to the bottom of the page for details of the panel of judges.
Here are the high level overviews and placings of all 23 Start-Up Showcase finalists. Contact details for all of these companies are available on their respective websites but if you would like a direct introduction to any of them then please email me at musicindustryblog AT gmail DOT COM.
| Company Name | Overall Score | Express Elevator Pitch | URL |
| Soniqplay | 2.40 | Soniqplay has developed an interactive music platform which enables easy creation of engaging music-based apps for brand and media owners – we turn consumers into content creators. | http://www.soniqplay.com/ |
| Definition Music | 2.38 | Definition Music Limited is a 360 Music company that focuses on development of IP and Copyright through the early development of writers and artists. | www.definitionmusic.com |
| Synchtank | 2.30 | We provide a powerful web based software platform for companies to manage and exploit music catalogues for synch purposes. | www.synchtank.net |
| Breakrs.com | 2.30 | Breakrs is an online music entertainment community for fans to find and “break” the best new music. | Breakrs.com |
| Crowd.FM | 2.29 | crowd.fm helps event promoters list their events online, whilst making it easier for them to connect with their audience and fans through the web and social media. | http://crowd.fm |
| MixMeIn | 2.07 | Mix Me In’s SocialMusic Player monetizes and engages the 1.5 Billion Fans of the top 100 Artists within Facebook, Google+ and other Social Media by allowing fans to instantly create and share custom versions of songs by their favorite artists. | www.mixmein.com |
| Dysonics | 2.05 | Dysonics headphone technologies reinvigorate the music industry by bringing a “live” quality and immersive experience to existing content and introduce new content that is optimized for headphones. | www.dysonics.com |
| ialbums | 1.99 | A content rich music player that provides an enhanced music listening experience, allowing the user to listen beyond the music. | www.ialbums.com |
| Eye In The Sky | 1.94 | Created by musicians and music fans, Eye in the Sky Collective is building a new, more sustainable model for the music industry- one that empowers artists to keep all of their music rights, 100% of their profit and build a long-term career while enabling fans to have a unique music discovery platform | http://EyeintheSky.org |
| Beefm.com | 1.88 | With BeeFM, Facebook becomes the largest social music service in the world. | http://www.beefm.com |
| Wavo | 1.87 | A social network and ecosystem for music that captures and integrates the full-range of the digital music experience for fans, artists and concert promoters alike. | Wavo.me |
| Video Star | 1.86 | Frontier makes mobile software for the casual creation of music videos, enabling users to creatively engage with the music they love in an entertaining and social way. | www.VideoStarApp.com |
| Audio Vroom | 1.85 | We scan your digital profiles on music services, social networks and mobile devices to create a custom profile together with tailored music and other content, which gets better with feedback on our curated choices. | http://www.audiovroom.com/ |
| StereoGrid | 1.80 | StereoGrid allows artists to easily deliver & share their music with music bloggers and press in a measured and controlled way. | www.stereogrid.com |
| Downloads Now! | 1.77 | We sell high resolution music in a new format 40 times the size as mp3s and our customers pay us $5 per single and $50 per album. | DownloadsNow.net |
| Muzieo | 1.76 | Muzieo is a mobile-based music social discovery service that brings Artists and Fans together via gaming mechanics. | http://muzieo.com/ |
| Songdrop | 1.74 | Pinterest for streaming music. | http://songdrop.com |
| Stereomood | 1.74 | stereomood is the crowd-sourced music aggregator that turns your mood into music, suggesting the best playlist for every moment of your life. | http://www.stereomood.com |
| TheBandGram | 1.70 | The BandGram is a mobile app that will let you send a clip of any song as an MMS message – think photo messages for music! | www.thebandgram.com |
| WaltGully.com | 1.60 | We Make Great Music | www.waltgully.com |
| DimSong | 1.57 | DimSong transforms any song into an interactive listening experience, allowing you to control the arrangement of a song in real-time so that no matter what you’re doing – your music listens to you. | www.dimsong.com |
| Minorbeat | 1.47 | Minorbeat connects professionals who currently work with each other, and gives them a digital hub to host songs and roles associated with the project. | minorbeat.com |
| musyc.tv | 1.45 | a. musyc.tv is a live video broadcasting platform for musicians – think Ustream or Justin.tv with only musician broadcasters. | musyc.tv |
In addition to Mark Mulligan (bio here) the judging panel comprises:
• Martin Goldschmidt, Chairman of the Cooking Vinyl Group.
• Davin McDermott, Director and Head of Music at RSM Tenon
• Keith Jopling, Leading Music Industry Consultant
Martin Goldschmidt, Chairman of the Cooking Vinyl Group.
Cooking Vinyl label is one of Europe’s most important Independent Record Companies. Current roster includes, The Prodigy, Billy Bragg, Frank Black, Nitin Sawhney, Groove Armada & Marilyn Manson (www.cookingvinyl.com). Cooking Vinyl has representation in 45 countries.
Essential Music, which offers label management, sales and marketing across Europe. Clients include Faithless, Black Crowes, Eno Byrne, William Morris Agency, New West, Black Hole recordings, Astral Music, Duran Duran, UNKLE, Megaforce & Traffic Entertainment
Cooking Vinyl Publishing’s writers include Kathleen Williams, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly and 65 Days of Static
Fan-Direct, set up in 2011 to provide direct to fan marketing solutions
Previously Martin founded an online distribution company, a management company and a booking agency.
Davin McDermott, Director and Head of Music at RSM Tenon
Davin has 15 years’ experience in the creative and technology sector. He started in the music industry in 1997 and has held a number of finance roles at both EMI and Warner Music where he gained experience across both recorded music and publishing. His roles included Financial Controller of EMI Europe and European Finance Director for Warner Music. Davin also gained considerable experience on the digital and technology side, including the launch of iTunes in 2003 while he was at Warner.
Upon leaving Warner, Davin established his own consultancy business which he ran for six years prior to joining RSM Tenon. He has worked with many creative and technology companies providing commercial and business support at various stages of their development from pre-incorporation and helping with company structures through to supporting fund raising, on-going tax and business planning and also providing full accounting and management reporting.
Keith Jopling
Keith is a business strategy and innovation professional consulting in the entertainment, information and digital media sectors. He is currently running several innovation and market development projects in the music industry for both the BPI and ERA.
He has done major digital development or strategy projects for EMI, Live Nation, Nokia, Sony-AIM, Daily Mail Group and others. He has also advised on music service development for high-end audio brands like Bowers & Wilkins and Bang & Olufsen and has advised numerous start-ups, most recently the Peter Gabriel funded business Cue Songs.
He is currently running various strategy projects for the BPI (UK labels) and ERA (UK retailers) and is advising on the development of a new music investment fund. He is an advocate for the University Music League project http://www.facebook.com/unimusicleague and pathway teacher for the Henley Music Business MBA.
He was Research Director and IFPI 2000-2006 and blogs sometimes on music at http://juggernautbrew.blogspot.com/. Keith is a Business Management graduate from Aston Business School in the UK and prior to music & media he worked in management consulting, healthcare policy and pharmaceuticals. He has a post-grad. Diploma in Digital Marketing with the IDM.
Music Industry Blog 
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Hi, are submissions still being accepted?
I just launched my business that specializes in branding and marketing musicians, actors and creatives using an old concept with a new twist. Its called and E2b Electronic Business Impressions, its a personalized easily customizable Emailer and digital advertising piece that can be used across multiple platforms. If you are interested I could write an article about methods of personal branding techniques. Thanks, Todd
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Will you be doing this again this year i.e. for 2013?
My company is called AirGigs, and it’s the first and only marketplace where music producers can hire online session musicians and online audio engineers. All recording, mixing & mastering is done remotely and shared via file transfer. The model opens up a new (online) dimension in the way music can be produced..
Are you doing this for 2014? Please check out http://zumic.com, a revolutionary website for music news and content curation. We are currently in Beta, but we’ll be launching our full site in stages over the course of this year.
Hi Brad – we’ll be running this later in the year. Please drop me a line to mark AT midiaconsulting DOT COM
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We have just launched my business https://www.promusicianslist.com. Employment Site for Music Industry Gigs
I’m Lorenzo Brizzo, and I developed https://bravoandbrave.com/, the first music theory search engine.