Chordify strikes major chord with crowds as funding campaign hits € 180K target

Dutch startup Chordify is singing a happy tune right now, as its crowdfunding campaign reached its target of 180.000 €uro on December 20th. It took three weeks to reach the desired amount as the campaign kicked off November 30th. The “Shazam for musicians” will let their symbid campaign rock on for overfunding until the end of the year.

“Karaoke for musicians”

Everyone who has ever tried to learn how to play the guitar or the piano knows the feeling: you hear a great tune, you try and figure out how to play it, but you just can’t figure out what that chord progression in those last few bars is. It’s not an F-major, nor an A-minor, but what is it? Sure, some of us have perfect pitch, but most mere mortals need a bit of help with learning the chords to their favourite tunes. You can buy expensive sheet music, or you can use Chordify. With a Shazam-like solution this e-learning platform lets you find out the chords to any song so you can rock out with the latest tunes on your guitar, or boogie down with the biggest hits on your piano. The founders themselves describe their product as a “karaoke for musicians!”

No more smashing your guitar on the ground

The idea behind Chordify is that founders want to encourage people to continue with their musical aspirations, and prevent them from throwing the towel in the ring (or smashing the guitar on the ground) when it gets too hard. Apparently almost 90% of people quit learning an instrument within the first year of trying. That is just way too much. And it is not just a lack of discipline but makes starting musicians tune out too soon; the expensive prices of music lessons are another reason why so many people give up their dreams of mastering an instrument too soon.

A deeper understanding of songs

While musicians in Amsterdam tend to turn to produce from the local coffeeshops to feel like they can understand their favourite albums better, Chordify has developed a chord grid view that actually helps musicians get a deeper understanding of the tracks they love. The software combines automatic chord recognition algorithms with user-generated chord sequences, so the users continually improve the product themselves. A standard subscription is free while a Premium subscription with more functionalities is six euros per month – cheaper than those coffeeshops.

Three important improvements

The bootstrapped company kicked off in 2013 and launched their first version the same year. Already in 2014 the platform started a partnership with Deezer. This year the company launched their iOS app and by now half a million musicians have already signed up. So far they have chordified 4.7 million songs. Chordify aims to use the €180,000 to accelerate their product and market development. Specifically, the company wants to make three important improvements over the next nine months. First they want to add the premium subscription options to their iOS app. The second improvement is making their platform more social for its users by enabling them to share their practice history. Lastly, they want to promote their Chordify Embedded Player which allows artists and festivals to have Chordify embedded on their own websites.

Chordify Teamphoto by Lex Vesseur.