TYXIT: The startup that brings live music into the digital age

18.02.2022 07:00, Isabelle Mitchell

A jury of experts and investors went through 90 applications and selected TYXIT to participate in the Venture Leaders Mobile 2022 roadshow. In February, the Lausanne-based startup and the Swiss National Startup Team members will attend the Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona. Before the 10 entrepreneurs meet with top-notch investors and industry leaders to strengthen their business network and advance their globalization, we want to introduce you to TYXIT CEO Nicolas Abelé.

TYXIT develops the first ultra-low latency conference app with high fidelity audio: The startup enables musicians to play and record together without being in the same room. The startup’s proprietary technology allows for an optimal latency of less than 30ms, which is comparable to playing in the same room—musicians do not experience a delay between when a sound is produced and when it is heard. 

Name: Nicolas Abelé 
Location: Lausanne 
Nationality: Swiss and French 
Graduated from: EPFL with a PhD (2007), IMD executive program (2019) 
Job title: CEO of TYXIT 
Number of employees: 10 
Money raised: CHF 1.1 million 
First touchpoint with Venturelab: In 2008 for Venture Leaders with Lemoptix (sold to Intel), the first startup that I co-founded with Marco Boella (now Magic Leap), Lucio Kilcher (now Shematic), and Faouzi Khechana (now HemostOD). We all stayed in the entrepreneurial and innovation scene! 
 
Nicolas, can you summarize what TYXIT does?
TYXIT develops a SaaS platform for remote real-time interaction among musicians and gamers. We provide a single interface for performers to play, rehearse, create, and protect their unique creation through NFT generation. Thanks to the platform’s backbone tech edge on ultra-low latency and immersive sound experience solutions, users can also engage with their fans as if they were in a live show. 
 
How and where did you come up with the idea for your startup? 
The founder, Raphaël, a musician and an embedded software master, experienced the lack of a solution to play remotely and wirelessly with his band. From my side, I played saxophone, like 50% of the population in France or Switzerland who learned to play an instrument but do not practice regularly due to lack of time and difficulty to finding other musicians to play with. I have also been looking for a simple and powerful online solution without finding it.

As an investor and board member since the company’s incorporation, I have seen the potential of the team, the technology edge, and the huge market needs for musicians and gamers/E-sports that need ultra-low audio latency to perform better together. These are the reasons Dave Brown, Olivier Müller, and I—entrepreneurs and lead investors in TYXIT from day 1—joined the team with the ambition to build a world-leading player in the domain. 
 
What do you expect from the Venture Leaders Mobile roadshow, and how will it help you achieve your vision?
We have three objectives for the program: 

• Increase our visibility with mobile and telecom partners. Our SaaS platform leverages their newest communication network (i.e., 5G) while our solution enables users to generate unique audio and video content and massive streaming traffic, in line with operators’ service-oriented business model trends.
• Expand our network toward media channels to multiply the traction we already get from media content companies (e.g., Montreux Jazz festival and QwestTV)—thanks to our capability to have their pool of artists jam together, create unique content to be either live-streamed or to be transformed into a tradeable NFT directly from our platform.
• Get visibility from SaaS and content-focused investors, as we are now launching our Seed investment round.

 
What would be the title of your biography?  
Reaching aspirations with passion, conviction, and a bit of fun. And I am optimistic by nature, which definitely helps when trying to achieve your aspirations. 
 
What is the one talent you wish you had?  
Singing: I was told that I have a single tone when singing ;)! 
 
What is a topic you would like to learn more about?  
Architecture: I like to design and build things from scratch and make them grow.
 
What is your favorite podcast? 
L’heure des rêves because it takes you into a totally different atmosphere, peaceful and mesmerizing. Perfect for switching gears. And incidentally, it is my wife’s podcast! 
 
What is your favorite book?  
Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert. Two friends and entrepreneurs keep innovating in various orthogonal fields where they learn and build expertise along the way. 
 
What advice would you give your teenage self?  
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Just try it, with passion! 
 
What is your favorite productivity tool?  
Google Workspace. The tools are so easy to use for collaboration; work gets really smooth. 
 
Who inspires you?  
Elon Musk. That guy has no limit: He shakes out the industry standards, even across industries, still making high-class products and delivering on promises. 
 
What is the most rewarding aspect of being a founder?  
When the people you have been working with for many years are jumping with you on the next venture. This is really rewarding in terms of trust and extremely motivating. 
 
What is the most important lesson you have learned as a founder?  
Getting and growing the right team is key. And this is much trickier for startups than for established companies. For a startup, you need to find people with the right balance between skills and attitude for the startup, but also people who can evolve with the company’s growth: from the stage where individuals initially have three or four hats/responsibilities to a more single-focused level as the company grows. People’s egos can disrupt things along the way too. So, really carefully pick up each individual who can handle this evolution. 
 
What is the best advice you have ever received?  
“Building a startup that has a huge market potential is actually simpler than making a small-scale niche one.” This quote is from Hervé Lebret, former head of EPFL Innogrant. This is definitely true when it comes to fundraising and getting partners and customers awareness… Everything is getting simpler and faster. 
 

For more information and updates on TYXIT and the Venture Leaders Mobile, follow the Venture Leaders Mobile 2022 team with #VleadersMobile on social media or subscribe to our newsletter. 
 
This year’s Venture Leaders Mobile program is supported by Huawei, Swisscom, and VISCHER.