Abbey Road Reds new Innovation Manager, Karim Fanous reports on the two new startups joining the programme: At the Abbey Road Red event in Studio Two last week we were excited to reveal the next two startups joining our incubation programme here at Abbey Road. One continues our interest in artificial intelligence with an engine that empowers casual listeners to create music in an accessible and fun way. The other takes Red into micro-licensing territory and aims to fill a licensing gap for social media influencers and generate a new set of revenue streams for rights holders. Humtap Humtap is a Silicon Valley based music technology startup that is pioneering the use of AI to enable consumers, advertisers and content creators to produce original songs by simply humming a melody in their mobile phones.

Tamer Rashad, founder CEO says like many teens around the world, I dreamt of being a musician. I studied music, then went down a different path professionally before finally coming back to music. I saw Instagram transform our relationship to photography and now video and put everyday users at ease connecting with others through creative visual expression. To bring these qualities to musical expression, and enable unprecedented collaboration between users and artists, we created Humtap. Weve been taking a deep dive into artificial intelligence in music since Red launched and with outgoing alumnus AI Music took our first foray directly into the space. We want to continue that support for AI driven music intelligence and experience going forward. Weve been getting to know Tamer over the last two years and hes a proven commercial strategist and entrepreneur who has taken time to build technology driven by his passion for music and making the enjoyment of music creation universally accessible.

Both sides felt that now was the right time to collaborate and were looking forward to helping him and the Humtap family shape their product and grow over the next six months. Lickd Many YouTube videos lack commercial music because creators are concerned with navigating complex copyright laws. Lickd introduces a micro-licensing model which allows creators of videos to select pre-cleared music tracks from the labels with a guarantee that the artist is paid and no copyright claims will be made. As the amount of video online continues to rocket, Lickd is the key to helping both music makers and content creators work together. CEO Paul Sampson says were delighted to be joining such a prestigious and forward-thinking incubator as Abbey Road Red. Innovating in the music industry isnt always easy and to be able to access the calibre of minds and experience available to us by being part of the programme is an incredible opportunity. We hope to scale the business significantly over the next two years and collaborating with Abbey Road Red will help us no end in achieving this goal.

Lickd have built a great vision and product since they launched nearly a year ago and bring Red into new but welcome territory with content micro-licensing. As with streaming picking up users who wouldnt previously have paid for music, we hope that Lickd will do the same for social media creators and help labels and rights holders grow their revenues. Weve been onboarding Humtap and Lickd over the last two weeks and are impressed by their leadership teams and vision. Were also happy that weve got such a diverse brace here with us for the next six months. Read more about the Abbey Road Red Demo Day and thefuture of the Red Incubator.