Berlin-based Enote, a music technology startup that uses AI to bring the world’s sheet music into a fully digital format, announced on Tuesday, April 4, that it has secured €10M in a pre-Series A round of funding.
The round was led by Dieter von Holzbrink Ventures (DvH Ventures), the EU’s European Innovation Council (EIC Fund), and the Rudolf Fuchs Family Office.
“The involvement of such major European business figures in this first closing reflects the ground-breaking progress we’ve made in the field of Optical Music Recognition (OMR), which is the key to unlocking new innovations in the publishing and education industries,” says Enote.
Peter Richarz, Managing Partner of DvH Ventures, adds, “We are excited to join the founding team in their dream of improving the lives of musicians through technology, making quality sheet music accessible and affordable to everyone, and transforming the music industry in the process. Their proprietary AI is the key to a unified digital sheet music format.”
According to a statement from Enote, a second close of the pre-Series A investment round is still open to angel investors, VC firms, and family offices, and the EIC Fund has pledged to match it Euro for Euro.
What is Enote?
Founded in 2019 by Boian Videnoff and Evgeny Mitichkin, Enote is a music technology startup that uses AI to convert centuries worth of written music into a reliable, flexible, and accessible digital format.
The company was founded with the intention of enhancing the lives of musicians via technology and providing everyone with affordable access to high-quality sheet music.
“We quickly realised that the key to this ambition lay in a consistent digital score format, so we developed an AI technology capable of understanding and reconstructing the world’s musical heritage,” says Enote.
After 18 months on the App Store, the app is joined by over 70,000 musicians.
Capital utilisation
Enote says this funding will provide the resources to continue creating the interactive, accessible, and inexpensive sheet music standard.
It will invest the money in initiatives that bring new innovations to the app, empower educators, and give more musicians the chance to access its library. The Enote Library already contains thousands of scores, and dozens of new pieces are added to the library each week.
Boian Videnoff, co-founder of Enote and chief conductor of the Mannheim Philharmonic, says, “We’re super excited to embark on the next chapter of our journey with such strong partners by our side.”
“Not only do they see the enormous business opportunity that lies in the still un-digitalised sheet music market, but they also understand the societal and cultural importance of Enote’s mission to democratise access to sheet music and make music education more rewarding, affordable and effective for billions of digital natives around the world.”
