Tag: MIDEM
Posted inNews

Midemlab contest names its hottest music/tech startups of 2021

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

The Midemlab startups contest is now a key pillar of annual music industry conference Midem, and it’s come a long way since its original incarnation in 2008 as the ‘Music Ally / MidemNet New Business Showcase’.

SoundCloud won the 2009 contest, with The Echo Nest (later acquired by Spotify to become the core of its personalisation tech) one of the finalists. The 2010 contest, renamed as MidemNet Lab, included Kickstarter and Songkick in its final selection.

Since then, Midemlab has become a great annual snapshot of new startups in the music/tech space, and – disclosure! – Music Ally has been proud to be one of the selecting partners for the contest throughout its history.

Today, the finalists for Midemlab 2021 have been announced, after a selection process that involved narrowing down 203 submissions from 34 countries into a shortlist of 20 startups divided between four categories.

Posted inNews

Midem and Nyege Nyege to shine a ‘Spotlight on East Africa’

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

One of the best steps forward for the Midem industry conference in recent years has been its expanded focus on Africa: not just booking a few speakers, but running events there and programming day-long strands at its flagship Cannes event.

Now Midem is building on that with a partnership with Ugandan music festival Nyege Nyege. It includes a two-day ‘Spotlight on East Africa’ event with sessions to be made available through Midem’s digital platform.

Midem says that speakers from telcos, collecting societies, labels, publishers, artists and managers, journalists and industry bodies will be taking part, although the programme has yet to be announced.

Posted inNews

Midemlab startups contest announces its 2020 winners

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

Solfeg·io, Super Hi-Fi, Audoo and Uptune have been named as the winners of this year’s Midemlab startups contest, held as part of the Midem music industry conference.

Like the conference, Midemlab was an entirely-online affair, with the pitches of all 20 finalists broadcast this afternoon, followed by the announcement of the winners.

Music Ally is a partner for Midemlab – we help to choose the finalists – so naturally we were watching the pitches and taking notes.

They’re below: first for the four winners, and then for the other finalists. It’s a good snapshot (alongside our recent coverage of the Techstars Music demo day) of 2020’s best music startups.