Tomplay Targets China's Aspiring Musicians and a Culture that Prizes Musical Education
scroll south
The clever Swiss sheet music app, which has already raised €4 million, boasts 400,000 users in 50 countries. The startup's success Japan makes co-founder Alexis Steinmann confident about entering China, the region's biggest music-lesson market.
Who is Tomplay for?
Learning a musical instrument is a long and painful process, and traditional paper sheet music doesn't meet modern learners' needs. This results in many people giving up quickly. The need for a better, more immersive and efficient way to learn and play an instrument was clear. Today more than 400,000 musicians in 50 countries use our Tomplay app learn and practise their instruments. It's an immersive experience, with the digital scores automatically scrolling as you play, accompanied by high-quality orchestral recordings. Users can also adjust the music's tempo to ease their learning.
What is your potential to scale in China?
We've already successfully launched Tomplay in Japan, which is one of our best performing markets. In China music education is equally highly valued and is a very important part of the education system. All children take music lessons on a weekly basis, so the potential is huge.
How does this roadshow fit with your market entry plans?
Tomplay is already available in Chinese, so I look forward to showcasing our product with Chinese musicians and schools, to gather feedback before our local launch planned for October. The Venture Leaders China roadshow is the perfect opportunity to meet strategic partners and investors who could support that market entry.
What are the biggest challenges adapting your app to the Chinese market?
Chinese customers use different technologies, for example digital transactions, so we're currently adjusting the app's code. We'll also need to adapt the UX and UI for the local market. This will require a very good understanding of the Chinese mentality, and we hope to get insights about that as well during the roadshows and meetings.
Venture Leaders China 2019 is co-organised by Venturelab and swissnex China, and supported by: digitalswitzerland, EPF Lausanne, ETH Zurich, Gebert Rüf Stiftung, Canton Vaud, VISCHER, and Canton Zurich.
Venture Leaders China 2019 winners
