EngineEars, a Los Angeles-based music-tech startup founded by the Grammy Award-winning audio engineer Derek “MixedByAli” Ali, announced Wednesday the completion of their $1 Million Pre-Seed round of investing.
The Investment is being led by Los Angeles based venture capital firm, Slauson & Co., with participation from some of the biggest names in music: Kendrick Lamar, DJ Khaled, Roddy Ricch, Mustard, YG, Ella Mai, Bas, Smino, Russ, Masego, Cardogotwings, Young Guru, Kenny Beats, Ibrahim Hamad of Dreamville, La Mar Taylor of XO, Meko Yohannes of 10Summers, and indie-record label EQT.
“For too long I’ve witnessed and felt the lack of organization and structure for the creatives at the forefront of presenting the art to the public,” Ali said in a press release. “Audio engineers exist behind the curtain and are put to the side too often as the independent music industry grows. This is why we raised our pre-seed, to hire the best talent and develop the best platform for music creatives.”
EngineEars’ senior management team includes COO Dan Maynard (Co-founder of the Canadian Apparel Company, Noble Gentlemen Trading), CTO Luke Sorenson (former Senior Software Engineer at Google), and Market Advisor Jacob Shamberger (previously an early employee running Growth at fintech start-up, Vise).
The announcement comes just a few weeks after MixedByAli sat down with Complex News for an extensive interview where the mix engineer discussed his EngineEars program while giving us a tour of his newly renovated studio (formerly owned by Death Row Records) and sharing what we should expect from new albums from Kendrick, SZA, and Baby Keem.
Check out the full interview below.
