Question: What Even Is Music Tech?
Consider the provenance of a song – It starts with an idea, translated into an audio file through the use of recording tools and software. From then on, it gets disseminated through playlists on streaming platforms, social media reels, film soundtracks, on stage, or through the speakers in a club or coffee shop.
Each of the above steps is enabled by technology.
Music tech broadly refers to the tools, platforms, and services that define how music is created, distributed, experienced and monetized.
It’s also worth mentioning what doesn’t necessarily fall under music tech: record labels, publishers, agencies, digital media/publications etc. These are generally customers or users of music tech.
The ambit of music tech is evolving as we speak, expanding beyond just music streaming, including areas like AI-enabled production tools, content creation, sampling and remixing, stem splitting, voice swapping, fan engagement, live-streaming, and is overlapping with industries like gaming, fitness, and wellness, to name a few.
It is entirely reshaping how we interact with music, both as creators and consumers.
A Brief History of Innovation in Indian Music Technology
Over the last decade, India’s music landscape has experienced dynamic growth, blending artistry, tech, and entrepreneurial spirit. Be it awe-inspiring live experiences, cutting edge audio technology or direct-to-fan communities, tech and creative talent have always found pathways to converge beautifully.
Flagship events like Magnetic Fields and EyeMyth Festival are great examples of this confluence: inviting multidisciplinary artists to create interactive digital art installations and immersive experiences for engaged audiences. Notable creatives such as Aaquib Wani, who designed distinctive stage concepts for Lollapalooza India and Prateek Kuhad’s visually immersive Silhouettes tour have pushed the envelope in live show design, intertwining music with digital and physical art.
Homegrown companies like Hungama and OKListen (acquired by AWAL) empowered independent musicians with digital distribution tools, while platforms like BookMyShow, District by Zomato (formerly Paytm Insider), and Skillbox (backed by Warner Music) responded to surging post-pandemic demand for live music, fueling the infrastructure for both major concerts and underground shows.
Pioneering artists such as Seedhe Maut, Divine and Ritviz, and artist collectives like Sez On The Beat’s THE MVMNT led successful NFT drops during the web3 frenzy. They leveraged blockchain for hip hop culture driven digital collectibles. During the same period underground artists like Yung.Raj and Oceantide experimented with DAO infrastructure through projects like Aaram Se and Songcamp’s Camp Chaos.
Alongside these artistic innovations, the audio developers community has fostered research and development through frequent hackathons dedicated to audio engineering, culminating annually at the ADCx developer conference in Bengaluru — a hybrid event that gathers researchers, engineers, developers and musicians for talks and open collaboration on the future of music technology. Adding to this wave, the growth of ‘Algorave ‘ i.e live coding music concerts signals a rising subculture where music and code converge in real time, underscoring the spirit of continual experimentation driving India’s new music frontier.
One Country, Many Headphones
India is arguably one of the most exciting music markets in the world right now. Our music has evolved from ancient classical traditions and diverse folk forms to film-dominated popular music. Film soundtracks drove the industry for decades and continue to do so, with timeless catalogues and a rich musical history laying the foundations for artists of today. The digital revolution of the 2010s democratized distribution and consumption, strengthening regional markets while independent artists flourished across genres, creating today’s diverse musical ecosystem.
However, India isn’t just one music market, it is a federation of linguistic-cultural micro-markets. Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Marathi, Malayalam, Bengali, Bhojpuri etc. – each with its own sonic archetypes, styles, platforms, and fandoms.
The country’s linguistic diversity is immense, with 121 languages spoken, 22 officially recognized, aside from the innumerable regional dialects. As of early 2025, there were 806 million internet users. Mobile connectivity is widespread, with 1.12 billion cellular connections — representing 76.6% of the population — driven by affordable smartphones and data plans. Indians spend an average of five hours daily on their phones, primarily engaging with social media, gaming, and video streaming platforms.
India’s per capita income has risen to $2,880 in 2025, reflecting a growing middle class increasingly inclined toward spending on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), lifestyle products, and experiences. The median age of the Indian population is 27 years, underscoring a predominantly young demographic.
This dynamic, multilingual, and youthful audience is reshaping India’s media landscape, making it one of the most vibrant and fast-evolving in the world.
Hence we can’t talk about “the Indian music consumer” like they’re one person. Calling India a 1.4 billion-person market might sound exciting, but it’s only meaningful if we account for the complexity within. According to the Blume Ventures Annual Report, we can loosely group Indian consumers into three categories, as per the infographic below:
So, when thinking about the music tech landscape in an increasingly ‘glocalized’ world, it’s important to be hyper-local in the early stages. As network effects can often be geographically limited, forward-thinking platforms and tools need to be built with regional and cultural nuances in mind.
Building a vibrant Indian Music Tech Ecosystem
At the grassroots level, India’s music and tech talent are two distinct groups with a very thin overlap. While the emerging artist ecosystem is vibrant, it is highly fragmented and governed by power-law dynamics, making it a risky and volatile investment landscape for institutional investors.
Juxtaposing this with the Indian startup ecosystem, ranking third globally in terms of unicorn count (as of May 2025), there is a need for more collaboration between the music industry and the burgeoning startup network.
It is also worth noting that venture backed models may not be best suited for music tech – it requires patient capital and strategic partnerships with industry incumbents. As a result, many founders find themselves navigating uncharted territory with no clear financing routes.
On a more optimistic note, there is growing awareness that music IP is both culturally and economically valuable. Savvy music tech startups of Indian origin are setting the stage for an upward trajectory where creators don’t get left behind. Beatoven.ai has notably earned the Fairly Trained certification in the ethical AI music space, Hoopr.ai is enabling creators with royalty free soundtracks and sfx, while Madverse Music is empowering independent artists and labels with DIY services across distribution and marketing.
Other emerging sectors include direct-to-fan community building tools like Clubz.fm, licensing solutions like Fairplay, and fractional investing models for fans to own a share in their favourite artist’s IP.
Music Tech India is an initiative launched by a collective of like-minded founders and industry operators in order to bridge this gap between the traditional Indian music industry (record labels, streaming platforms, etc.) and the world of creative technologists and music tech startups.
Source: Music Tech India
Learning from Global Music Tech Initiatives
Our western counterparts have taken significant steps in supporting music tech. From government grants, industry partnerships and startup accelerators focused solely on music, along with a well-defined venture capital network for music tech startups. This enables scalable IP commercialization and drives organic interest in cross-border collaborations.
Global initiatives like ADE Startups, Wallifornia, SXSW and Slush to name a few are leading the charge when it comes to crafting tailor-made programs and conferences at the intersection of music, technology and the wider media and entertainment business. On the homefront, the 2025 edition of All About Music has introduced a ‘Pitch to Investors’ programme for music startups which could prove to be key in recognizing the great work being done in this space.
Music Technology UK (MTUK) recently published the Sound Investments report which dives into investment data and trends that could shape the future of UK music tech, highlighting key opportunities, case studies, gaps and focus areas within music tech subcategories.
Yamaha has also recently announced a $50 million corporate venture capital fund to invest in music and media startups. In India, we’re not quite there yet. While our talent is immense and our creativity unmatched, music tech ventures often don’t fit neatly into existing funding categories like SaaS, entertainment, or consumer apps. While traditional industry frameworks are evolving as we speak, head-turning investments in Indian music tech startups are far and few.
A corollary of our earlier definition of music tech implies that its market size is a factor of the size of the music market itself, which in India is small relative to more developed markets. Hence the total addressable market (TAM) for music tech solutions is also small at this stage. The same TAM can grow linearly with the growth of the Indian music industry, or exponentially if the solution is adopted internationally and/or in allied entertainment industries.
As Harvard professor Tarun Khanna notes in the widely acclaimed book Trust, emerging economies like India often lack strong institutional support, which means founders here don’t wait for perfect conditions – they create them. Building trust with artists, innovating around industry constraints, and creating community-driven infrastructure are approaches that could prove to be successful.
In Conclusion – Creators Light the Path
If you want to know where music tech is headed, follow the creators. They’re already experimenting with AI, building direct-to-fan distribution channels, and using new platforms in unprecedented ways.
We’re also seeing encouraging institutional initiatives to support startups, promote digital IP, and encourage entrepreneurship in creative industries. That said, there’s room for more streamlined copyright and metadata management, education for artists on their rights and increased compliance around creator-first legal frameworks. With the right policy support, the Indian music tech sector could scale rapidly and equitably.
It seems like we’re at the cusp of an inflection point in contemporary music history, in that developments over the coming years could define decades to come.
This is a guest article written by Arav Saraff, edited by Aniket Rajgarhia.
