InstrumentChamp announces launch of music game platform and new equity crowdfunding campaign

After a successful crowdfunding campaign in December, InstrumentChamp has been busy expanding its team and building a music game platform to be released in May.

“We are on a mission to transform the music learning experience and make the world play music” says Magnus Willner, co-founder of InstrumentChamp AB. “Almost everyone has experienced how hard it is to learn to play music, and most of us quit because it's so difficult, boring, and lonely to practice. Playing games is more fun”.

InstrumentChamp was founded in Gothenburg back in 2011 by brothers, Magnus and Lars Willner. With a first-hand experience of the traditional music learning process, they were inspired by the success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band and started developing a similar game but utilizing real musical instruments like acoustic guitar, piano and drums.

Fast forward three years and the company is now ready to release the first version of a music game platform which will make learning to play music fun, easy, and a social experience. The core sound recognition technology basically turns your computer into a digital music teacher that listens, analyzes, and give real-time feedback of how well you play. With the new web-based music game platform, users can compete with their friends in a music challenge online. “As brothers, we have always competed in games and sports. Now we can also challenge each other in a real music game”, says Lars, the younger brother.  

At the end of 2013, InstrumentChamp decided to launch an equity crowdfunding campaign on the crowfunding platform, FundedByMe. “We wanted to find people who wish to help us on the mission to make the world play music, and also fund the product development," Lars explains. The company launched in Helsinki during the Slush tech conference, and soon the campaign was launched, and even 'oversubscribed' by people that wanted to join. At the end of the campaign, 21 people had invested a total of SEK440000, about $67,000 (USD).

"It is highly unusual that campaigns successfully close before going into Open Round, where normally the most hard work is done." says Daniel Daboczy, CEO of FundedByMe. "We are excited to see that InstrumentChamp is about to launch and are ready to do a seed round with FundedByMe”.

InstrumentChamp has now decided to open a new round where they wish to raise SEK1000000 in seed funding to fund the market introduction phase. Peter Fosso, the company's new CMO states: “As we're nearing the launch of the new music game platform we now invite others to join our mission and become our ambassadors and shareholders.”

The company is part of the booming music tech scene in the Nordics, and enters into a global market with competitors like the guitar games, Rocksmith (Ubisoft) and GuitarBot (Finnish company, Ovelin). As more and more people search online for digital games and tools for learning to play music, InstrumentChamp sees the opportunity to transform the traditional music learning experience.

More information about the crowdfunding campaign can be found on FundedbyMe.com: http://bit.ly/1rsyztD