Meet Guy Gross from Mash Machine – startup of the week
Every week we’ll publish a 30 second pitch from 12 leading startups from across London. In this series we took the founders to the River Thames, aboard Canary Wharf’s speedboat for the most exciting pitch of their lives.
Tuning up
Mash Machine turns everyone into a DJ.
It makes creating music as simple as placing blocks on a table, and DJing as simple as moving those blocks around.
At first glance the machine looks like 2001: A Space Odyssey opened a sushi bar. But place a block on the surface and as the music begins it all starts to make sense.
Bangers and mash
Any block touching the surface plays a layer of music. The different coloured blocks represent different types of layer – drum beats, basslines, melodies and so on.
What’s more, the layers are chosen in advance so any combination sounds good, and the beats always sync together so you don’t need split-second timing.
Now move the blocks around and it gets really interesting. Each corner of the square surface applies a different effect, so you can warp your creation like a real DJ.
I need a dollar
This week Mash Machine launched a £1.5m fundraise on crowdbnk.com, one of the largest ever crowd funding campaigns.
The company has taken in no investment to date and made £70,000 in sales in the 6 months since they began.
Making waves
Currently, Mash Machine makes its money through experiential marketing.
The blocks and sounds can be replaced by brands to encourage recognition as people play with the hardware.
Founder Guy Gross say the startup has much bigger plans, and is not just for amateurs.
Artists and DJs will be able to programme and control the entire environment, from sound and lighting to AV and smoke machines, in real time through one interface.
Better yet they will be able to hand over some or all of that control to the audience via an app.
They’re also exploring the ways the technology can be used in education and therapy.
Mash Machine ultimately aim to change the way we interact with music.
The music industry needs a new proposition that will create the sort of value people are prepared to pay for.
Without giving too much away, we believe that enabling people to customise a song and interpret it their way (using content supplied by the artists) will build that value.
Mash Machine’s crowdfunding page on Crowdbnk can be found here.