The funds received from Canadian investors will be used by the team to launch an iOS application and a B2B platform for professionals such as producers, directors, and sound engineers.
Harmix is an artificial intelligence-based service that automatically matches music to videos. Its CEO, Nazar Ponochevnyi, started at the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and joined the UF community in 2020. Since then, Harmix has been a winner and finalist in various technical and startup competitions, and has participated in events supported by GIST both within and outside our business incubator. Even at the pre-seed stage, the startup received a $25,000 grant from the Ukrainian Startup Fund and $13,000 in support from Amazon Web Services.
"With these funds, the team developed and launched their initial marketing campaigns. Unfortunately, due to the full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine, the marketing efforts had to be suspended, so the team focused on improving the platform and seeking new investments. This proved to be a challenging task as the war has affected the dynamics of the global investment market, with shifting investor priorities and increased strategic risks and challenges," shared the Harmix team.
According to them, Harmix CEO Nazar Ponochevnyi had meetings with dozens of potential investors and, at one university event, coincidentally met the founder of an international fund. This marked the beginning of their future collaboration:
"The investor was interested in the platform's concept and the team's ability to develop the product in conditions when, as students, we were scattered across different countries. Six months of negotiations and due diligence by the fund led to the successful raising of a $500,000 round for the startup. The team plans to use these funds to launch an iOS application and a B2B platform for professionals such as producers, directors, sound engineers, and more," reported Harmix.
Anyone can experience how Harmix works through harmix_bot on Telegram or by downloading the corresponding application from Google Play. In 2022 alone, the startup attracted over 30,000 users. Currently, as they work on new features, the startup is expanding its team and seeking ML Engineers, Data Analysts, Data Engineers, Python Developers, UI/UX Designers, as well as individuals from the creative industry who would be interested in sharing their experience in selecting music for their own projects.
Alongside product development, Harmix continues to actively participate in industry events. In 2022, the startup was represented as part of Ukrainian delegations at technology exhibitions such as Collision (Toronto) and TechCrunch Disrupt (San Francisco), and in February 2023, at the globally renowned SyncSummit (Los Angeles), a music licensing event for visual media. Harmix also became the only Ukrainian startup to be included in the top 40 startups by Techstars Music accelerator.