6 Startups De Música Se Juntam a Aceleradora De Programas "Marathon Artists"

Six Musical Startups Join Marathon Artists For Its Second Accelerator Program

First of all thanks to Hugh McIntyre for this article.

Starting the first week of October (which is coming up fast, even though it still feels like summer in some parts of the country), Marathon Artists will kick off the second year of its music/tech startup accelerator program, simply known as LABs. This time around, the organization plans to focus specifically on “content monetization,” which is one of the trickiest topics in the music business these days. Everybody knows how valuable content of all kinds can be, but how does one actually make money off of it?

The six companies chosen to take part in the second iteration of Marathon Artist LABs couldn't be more different from one another, as there are magazines, complex algorithm creators, app developers and plenty of people thinking about data day and night. The accelerator is a big step for Marathon, which operates as a record label, management firm and publishing company, but the British music favorite has plenty of valuable connections in the business, and that can be exactly what many ventures need to get to the next level.

Here are the six companies that have been announced as participants in the second edition of Marathon Artist LABs.

InPlayer

The company describes itself as a “next generation video and digital asset monetization platform,” which contains a number of exciting buzzwords, all of which will likely help it attract the attention of future investors. The idea is that any page on any website, including the personal site for any musician, can instantly feature a paywall to access the content, which should be music to the ears of millions of musicians looking to make a living from their art. This is no new company either, as the firm’s website states it has already processed millions of dollars in transactions.

Mahogany

What started as a blog back in 2009 has now become one of the most-watched performance video series focusing solely on music. While the writing didn’t last too long, the videos have, and now the Mahogany Sessions’ YouTube page has almost half a million subscribers, and well over 100 million plays. Artists like Gabrielle Aplin, Wrabel, Laura Marling, Frances, James Hersey, Jack Garratt and MUNA have all taken part recently, and this group has been catching acts before they exploded for years now.

escapex

At it’s core, escapex allows celebrities, be they musicians, actors, models or other, create apps that megafans can download. Those mobile programs will contain tons of content from the stars themselves, including videos, photos, some exclusive, some not, and they can choose to either ask those who have downloaded to pay for access, or they can insert ads into the experience, which monetizes much of the content they were creating and giving away in the first place.

Dummy

Like Mahogany, Dummy is more of an editorial platform than a startup, at least in the way many think of that term when focusing on accelerators. Dummy Mag focuses on highlighting up-and-coming talent, reviewing albums and singles and interviewing some of the coolest names in music that haven’t quite broken yet. The title has been a respected source of music journalism for years now, and it looks like those in charge may be interested in taking the company to the next level by taking part in Marathon.

While the music industry becomes more and more technologically advanced, there is still an aspect to discovering tunes that is uniquely human, and Musimap is looking to find a way to let the machines in on that fun as well. Until now, humans were the best at suggesting what a person might like based on what bands, songs and albums they identify as favorites, and a person can still grasp the emotional tone of a track better than any algorithm. The people are Musimap are working on forming connections between pieces of music, which can help other companies in their quest to become the best at offering up new discoveries first.

Adelphi

According to a press release shared by Marathon itself, Adelphi is “a data management service dedicated to the independent music sector. It is developing methodologies to exploit music-related data and monetise it by offering data-driven marketing solutions for programmatic advertising.” This seems to be a sweet spot for many businesses offering music to consumers, so if Adelphi can find ways to truly make use of all the trillions of points of data out there, it will surely make some serious cash.