Our current Innovation Manager Jon Eades reflects on the progress made by the start-ups who presented at last weeks Abbey Road Red Showcase: Having grown from the seed of an idea in late 2014, then launching officially in October 2015 to becoming a fully-fledged incubation programme in early 2016, Abbey Road Red is now in its third year and counts nine companies as its alumni, with two new companies recently joining for the next six months (read more about that here). Last weeks showcase event (more about that here) provided a great opportunity to pause for a moment and take a look back at some of the companies weve supported in the past two years. Alongside pitches from our two recent graduates Vochlea and AI Music, we also hosted a panel featuring three of our programme alumni, OSSIC, CloudBounce and Scored. Over these last two years weve had the pleasure of working with some of the most inspiring entrepreneurs operating in the music space, building businesses across a whole range of areas.

Heres a run down of the five alumni companies present at last weeks event: Vochlea: Armed with a basic prototype and a very compelling vision, the founder of Vochlea - George Wright - instantly caught our attention in early 2017. By utilising machine learning, Vochlea has built an interface for vocally controlled music making that adapts to every users unique vocal style. Vochlea are currently closing their seed funding round and are on the verge of taking their first product to market AI Music: When we first met, AI Music was a three man team with some very ambitious ideas of how to employ AI to power shape shifting adaptive content. Nine months later and they have grown into an 18 man powerhouse with a fully functioning app and pop up artist studio in East London. 2018 is going to be a very exciting year for AI Music. OSSIC: Joining Abbey Road Red in March 2016 for our inaugural intake, OSSIC went on to run one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns of all time with their smart 3D audio headphones. Currently sending out their early developer editions followed by the rest to all their backers, OSSIC are about to make 10,000+ 3D audio enthusiasts very happy CloudBounce: We definitely raised a few eyebrows in house here at the studios when we first announced we were supporting an automated mastering engine.

It didnt take long for everyone to realise that humans and AI serve different segments of the market with real opportunities for collaboration between the two. CloudBounce continues to go from strength to strength as music information retrieval and machine learning developments continue to gather pace Scored: co-founded by a composer and filmmaker brother duo, Scored is a product that solves a need Luke and Ryan know well, offering an intuitive solution for filmmakers to adapt and sculpt music to fit their productions. Currently in private beta, Scored is all set for public launch later this year. One of the most satisfying parts of working with start-up companies is being able to watch as they adapt and grow. Six short months in a start-ups life can feel like a lifetime. Watch this space and keep checking back to see what the next six months has in store.