Abbey Road Red, our music tech incubator, and Universal Music Israel (UMI), a division of Universal Music Group (UMG) have today announced a first of its kind scouting and development partnership.
Under the new partnership UMI will identify and recommend promising music & entertainment startups on the fast-paced Israeli tech scene for submission to the Abbey Road Red incubator. Red’s completely bespoke music–focused technology incubation programme runs for six months. During those six months, successful applicants will have access to Abbey Road and Universal Music’s industry leading expertise, a large & dedicated mentor network, unparalleled access to other major and independent labels, publishers and music companies, research relationships with academia in addition to access to finance and investment round support.
Abbey Road Red is Europe’s first, and most successful, music tech incubator. Now in its sixth year of operation, Abbey Road Red has nurtured over 18 music technology start-ups, including Israeli AI powered song search start-up MyPart, which between them have raised over $80m and have a collective post-money valuation of more than $325m. Red has recently experienced its first exit, when a start-up from its second cohort was acquired by Apple in early 2022.
Isabel Garvey, managing director, Abbey Road Studios: “While investigating the music technology start-up landscape over the last few years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of media and music businesses emerging from the vibrant Israeli tech scene. We are excited that this partnership with UMGI will allow us the benefit of local access to the most exciting new music technology businesses Israel has to offer for consideration for incubation through Abbey Road Red. We have already successfully incubated MyPart, an exciting Israeli AI song search start-up, and look forward to seeing many more across different tech disciplines in our pipeline.”
Yoram Mokady, managing director, Universal Music Israel: “The pace of innovation in Israel is incredible and Universal Music is at the forefront of it. This exciting and first of its kind partnership with Abbey Road Studios will ensure that we continue to find and adopt the latest in music technology, and allows us to continue providing our artists with the best support in the industry.”
About Abbey Road Red
The 2015 launch of Abbey Road Red marked Europe’s first-of-its-kind music-focused technology incubator. Continuing on a legacy of over 80 years of ground breaking technological advances that took place at Abbey Road Studios, Abbey Road’s RED program has been successfully fostering the next generation of music start-ups Abbey Road Red sits within foundations which have supported the development and use of cutting-edge audio technology, from the creation of stereo in 1934 to The Beatles pushing the boundaries of early stereo separation and channel overdubs with REDD desks into tape machines in Studio Two, to quadraphonic audio with Pink Floyd.
About Universal Music Israel
Universal Music Israel focuses on the signing and developing of domestic artist talent, alongside exploring creative opportunities for commercial partnerships, new technology and innovation for artists, labels and partners.
