🎧 80+ Music Startups: A Curated Guide
Handpicked with a fan-first lens by a Spotify and Billboard alum with 12+ years in music
When I left Spotify after nearly 8 years building fan engagement and artist tools, I decided to hit pause, take a sabbatical, and put out a call:
Who’s building the future of music?
Over the past year, I’ve spoken with 100+ founders, creatives, technologists and fans working across the music stack (in between a lot of other life events: 7 weddings, 1 funeral, 3 continents, 1 profile—all for another post, another day).
I was feeling uninspired and frustrated with the state of the industry, looking for fresh perspective and insights on the problems facing artists and fans today.
Here is a curated and opinionated database of the fan-facing, artist-supporting startups I found:
✅ 80+ music startups, tagged by category
💿 Filter By: GenAI Co-Creation & Remix, Superfans, Discovery & Curation, Direct-to-Fan, Creation & Collaboration, Marketing & CRM and Alternative Streaming Models.
🔗 Links to company websites and products
🌶️ Sharp commentary on startup potential, positioning, and market fit
⭐️ Favorites marked and personally recommended
In this post, I’ve organized my insights into three big themes + my hot takes and a sampling of notable startups in each theme.
A few housekeeping notes first:
My focus is on the fan-facing, artist-supporting layer of music tech. There’s a ton of important and interesting work happening in music’s backend systems right now: rights and royalty management, analytics, distribution, or as Water and Music calls it: "boring is back" tools. I spoke to folks building really important and interesting back office tools, but they are not the focus of this post.
I focused on music specific startups. Some of the most interesting things in music are actually happening on non-music specific platforms like Substack or Tiktok - I’ve written about those here and here. Today’s post focuses primarily on music specific companies.
1. Making Music Interactive 🔀
Shifting recorded music from passive listening to active participation
🔥 Hot Takes:
More people want to interact with artists than replace them. Americans are literally going into debt just to attend concerts, not to make meme tracks on Suno.
The consumer market for GenAI music creation will be smaller than the market for fan co-creation and remix tools. Text prompts are the wrong interface for making music.
The next wave of music tech will look like a toy before it looks like a business.
That said, most AI remix tools are a feature, not a company.
Why It Matters:
The last thing the music industry needed was more songs—yet here we are. Deezer reports that 18% of tracks uploaded to it’s platform are AI-generated.
Calling Suno or Udio a “Napster moment” for the industry misses the point. Napster, for all its faults, actually solved real problems for fans. The same level of consumer demand for AI song creation isn’t there.
However, fans today expect a level of creative participation, especially generations of music fans who have grown up regularly creating and uploading content of their own. Co-creation and remix apps root the experience in something familiar and more accessible to more types of fans.
Startups to Watch:
Splash / Kaimix: Roblox-native music creation game where fans pick a beat, sing or hum melodies and vocals, and Splash’s virtual artist “Kai” (or artists the company has partnered with like Phantoms or Bob Foxx) “finish” the track. Created songs get played in game on Splash.
Mixy: Viral (and almost certainly unlicensed) music remixing app with easy share flow.
Ampollo: Makes rough drafts feel less precious and more social. A platform for producers, artists, and fans to remix, collaborate, and share works-in-progress.
Examples of Mixy shares on X and TikTok
➡️ App links + my commentary + more startups in the database here
2. Music Discovery & Curation Beyond the Algorithm 💿
Breaking up the echo chamber with context, taste, and human curation.
🔥 Hot Takes:
Most social music apps fail because they focus on your IRL friends, not your taste graph. I don’t really care what random people in my contact list are listening to, sorry!
The demand from artists to get discovered is obvious. The harder question: what’s a compelling discovery experience for fans?
Why It Matters:
Music culture is happening online, but it’s fragmented: Twitch livestreams, TikTok comments, Discord channels, group chats, online radio, niche playlists, and paid Substacks.
It’s also unpredictable for artists. There are few consistent tools or channels to tell your story and build the kinds of fan relationships you need for a sustainable career.
Startups to Watch:
NTS Radio: Organically cool, taste-driven, community-powered global internet radio station
Music League: Genuinely fun social music game you play with friends or friends-of-friends
Nero: Tool for tastemakers, DJs, and producers who review tracks in livestreams and get paid to boost songs in the queue. Nero handles submissions, queue management and payments.
Shelf & Housewarming: Both of these apps let you showcase your media consumption (music, books, TV, movies, etc.) and tap into the vibe-based self-expression
My "shelves" on Shelf and Housewarming ➡️ More apps in the database here
Bonus: TikTok & Substack: Not music-specific, but dominating music discovery and fandom at the edges.
TikTok is the top of the funnel for music discovery
Substack is where curators and niche communities go deeper.
Neither is designed for music, but both are shaping its culture.
3. Fandom as a relationship, not a transaction. 💖
Direct-to-fan sales are the backbone of a sustainable career. But fans want to self-express and support, not just be sold to.
🔥 Hot Takes:
Most “superfan” apps are CRM tools, built to maximize LTV, not build community. The novelty of “a text from your favorite artist” fades fast when every message is selling you something.
Fans still want the same things: cool merch, great concert tickets, and VIP moments to interact with the artist. We don’t have to totally reinvent the wheel. The opportunity is in making it cooler, easier, and more sustainable.
There’s too much focus on artist-specific superfans and siloed experiences, and not enough on music superfans—the ones who love the culture itself and care about many artists.
The physical album or digital downloads aren’t a delivery mechanism anymore—they are proxies for fan enthusiasm.
Why It Matters:
For artists with niche fanbases, streaming is great for reach, not revenue.
If artists want sustainable careers, real connections with fans and direct-to-fan income—merch, concerts, interactivity and community—is the foundation.
Having fans who care about you + you can reach is the bigger challenge than figuring out what to sell to them.
Startups to Watch:
Fave: Social platform dedicated to superfans. Showcase your fan activity, get verified, connect with fellow fans in a safe haven and unlock access to exclusives.
EVEN: Fans get access to new releases and exclusive content—before it hits streaming. Artists set the price and get paid daily.
MerchCat: Fans can pre-order merch and pick up at the venue or get it shipped. Helps touring musicians sell more merch with a tool that is more effective than pen and paper and more affordable than existing alternatives.
Ways to prove your fandom and earn point on Fave
Bonus: Alternative Streaming Models
Seeking an alternative to streaming?
🔥 Hot Takes:
Most alt streaming startups are doomed from the start—not because their vision for artists is bad, but because they’re not solving real, differentiated fan problems.
Too many are artist-first in a vacuum, without asking: why would a fan switch?
Starting with creators to attract an audience is an expensive and uphill battle unless you’ve nailed the value exchange on both sides.
The alt streamers in my database: Audiomack, Audius, Ampwall, Campfire, Catalog, Coda, Foreplai, Lissen, Nina, Popup.fm, Quobuz, Subvert, Sleevenote, Vocana.
The Takeaway:
Music startups are notoriously brutal.
Licensing is expensive and slow. APIs can disappear. You need fans to attract artists, you need artists to attract fans.
And way too many music startups are generic, un-cool, and exploitative of artists and fans.
My biggest takeaway?
Start with the fans. Always.
The music industry has always been driven forward by the passion and rabid enthusiasm of young fans. Of all the conversations I’ve had in the last year, the most enlightening and inspiring ones were with students and young people.
Follow the fans and you will find the “future of music.”
📋 What startups am I missing in my guide? Tell me what I missed here.
👋 Hi, I’m Emily White. I help startups build products creators and fans love as a product advisor and consultant.
💼 Whether you need a gut-check on an idea, help turning insights into a roadmap, or clarity on what’s working (and what’s not), I offer product consulting services tailored to the unique challenges of music tech.
Every now and then, I come across an article that I have to bookmark so I can refer to it again later and not let it get lost in the void of the Substack archive. This is one of those!
Been a huge fan and supporter of NTS for a few years now, i'll have to dig deeper on some of the others mentioned, but this is an awesome resource! Thanks for putting it together!