The annual Midemlab startup competition in Cannes attracted another strong lineup of music-related companies that are targeting an industry undergoing massive disruption.
The competition received 234 submissions from 42 countries. I served on a jury for startups pitching in "Experiential Technology," one of four categories in the competition. Here is the winner, along with the four other finalists in the category:
Winner: Enhancia
France's Enhancia makes a connected ring called Neova that allows musicians to control the sound effects for their instruments using gestures. The product includes a hub that can be plugged into a computer or a synthesizer and uses MIDI technologies for the effects. The company will sell the hardware and is developing additional gesture-recognition effects that will be sold separately.
WowTune
Hong Kong-based WowTune has developed technology that reproduces voices -- speaking and singing -- from clips of sound found online. The business angle would essentially be to allow celebrities' voices to be licensed to produce content for third parties. For instance, in theory, one could license Michael Jackson's voice from his estate to record a new song. As part of the development, the company has also created a WowTune app that lets users record their voices singing to short song clips, add effects, and then publish the result to be seen by other users of the app.
Worth mentioning are the winners in the three other Midemlab pitch categories:
Each of the four winners receives meetings with Deezer CEO Hans-Holger Albrecht, a Kima Ventures partner, and Techstars Music startup accelerator.