TRENDING TOPICS
MUSICTECH
Jakob Steinschaden
First place in the i2b business plan competition, winner of the Startup Live Pitch event in November 2019 of the FH Wiener Neustadt – and now a first investment round: The Lower Austrian startup Marschpat has the investors Michael Altrichter, startup300 and Markus Tröscher in a seed round brought on board. There is no information on the investment amount; in any case, the new minority shareholders together grab 26 percent.
Thanks to the awards in various competitions last year, the three founders of Marschpat, Patrick Rupprecht, Carina Eigner and Markus Wenzl, are already known in the startup scene. They completed the notary appointment with the new investors on Thursday afternoon, and the online shop was only opened at the beginning of the week.
E-book reader on an instrument
And so we have finally come to the product that has its own peculiarities. Because instead of “just” programming an app that shows march musicians music sheets, the three Lower Austrians have built a digital sheet music and club management system – and there is also the right hardware in the shop. Because tablets and other displays are usually too heavy to attach to instruments instead of marching books, Marschpat uses lightweight e-book readers that are light and inexpensive. They are sold between 119 and 419 euros.
“Marschpat marched in with a march band with a digital marching book, the digitization of a popular Austrian tradition suddenly stood before me in persona. The market for march music is huge, there are over 5 million musicians in the DACH region alone, and the USA and Asia are also super exciting markets, “says Business Angel Michael Altrichter, who recently became the official start-up representative of the federal government (Trending Topics reported).
Digital music sheets and networking
Marschpat’s software currently offers users a variety of new and traditional trakcs of music that have been rearranged by young composers and made available by well-known publishers. In future, devices should also be networked with one another, which means that the conductor can select a piece and synchronize it with all other devices in the band. There is also support from the Lower Austrian march Music Association.
“When niches that were previously completely analog are digitized, that’s always exciting. Marschpat won over the jury at Startup Live. I am happy that we can come on board this way and provide active support, ”said Bernhard Lehner, co-founder and board member of startup300.
Disclaimer: startup300 and Michael Altrichter are also investors in Trending Topics.