Un:hurd and SYNKii crowned winners of ADE & Antler Startup Competition; will raise €100K from Antler

The jury also gave out a Jury Prize for Moonai, an audio app for women’s health and productivity. The startup will also get an opportunity to organise a panel around their business during ADE 2023.

“The music and entertainment industry is undergoing a protracted wave of disruption due to the opportunities provided by new technologies. This competition has been a unique opportunity for us to dive deep into the current state of technology in this market and what is coming next, in partnership with a top industry player like the Amsterdam Dance Event.”, says Youri Doeleman, Partner at Antler. 

“While in the applicants, we saw some startups with technologies like NFT and Web3, from the finalists, you can see that AI is currently leading the pack as the most promising technology across the music tech scene. All of today’s finalists are driving leaps forward in their respective domains,” he adds. 

The finals, which took place in Amsterdam today, involved six startups with world-changing ideas in music and entertainment, ranging from hardware and software to tools for artists, agencies, musicians, and all the party people.

The six finalists were:

• Un:hurd – The ‘in your pocket’ music marketing solution. 
• SYNKii – The all-in-one platform for teaching music online. 
• Moonai – Audio app for women’s health and productivity. 
• Beermate – Self-service bar from the future. 
• Stagent – Seamless artist management software. 
• Halbestunde – AI music learning app for any sheet of music. 

The competition received over 100 applications worldwide promoting their creative solutions in music and entertainment tech. Each applicant was evaluated based on six attributes: innovation, team, scalability, product, traction, and market.

Let’s have a brief look at the winners. 

Un:hurd: What you need to know

Founded by Alex Brees in 2019, Un:hurd provides a comprehensive solution for artists to promote their music on various social and music platforms bringing a data-focused approach to music marketing. 

“To this date, Un:hurd has been able to show significant traction, and as the company is in a highly growing market, there is lots of room to grow the company into big business pivoting to new customer segments,” says the press release.

SYNKii: What you need to know

Founded by Boram Choi and Lawrence Jenner in 2020, SYNKii is an online music education platform aiming to ease communication between students and teachers. 

The company has redesigned how we learn instruments through web-based personalised learning and one-to-one sessions with tutors bringing students’ personal development to the center of learning. 

“The platform stands out as the best alternative and has a lot of room to grow in the huge global music education market. The team’s background is in music teaching, and they have managed to turn that knowledge into a highly sophisticated product,” says the press release. 

Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE): What you need to know

Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) claims to be an upfront, influential and educational gathering for electronic music and its industry. 

With the help of its conference, festival, and educational breeding ground, ADE can create a yearly industry tent-pole moment and a solid foundation for future generations of electronic music professionals.

Antler: What you need to know

Founded in Singapore in 2017, Antler builds and invests in the ‘defining technology companies of tomorrow.’ Antler has offices globally across most major entrepreneurial hubs, such as London, Berlin, Bangalore, Stockholm, Oslo, New York, Singapore, and Sydney.