It has been a while since our first MediaMatters Matchmaking event back in 2016. We have made a lot of progress since then and are still improving every edition (8 in total to date). Today we look back at the startups we once helped and especially at the matches that have been made. We've come a long way, but the startups that attended that first event made even bigger steps.

First, we take a look at the company MatchHamster. They attended our first matchmaking event in June 2016. They also attended our recent speed dating event with news agencies during the conference of MINDS in Portugal. Matchhamster is a Dutch company that specializes in online content monitoring. Through MatchHamster customers get more relevant and detailed insights into the online performance of their content, reputation and competition. We asked them a few questions, talking about the progress they have made as a company and the influence MediaMatters had on it.

What was your company’s greatest accomplishment since 2016?
We made a deal with the international news agency AFP (Agence France Presse).

How do you feel about the future of your company?
The feeling is good. Nobody can say anything relevant about the future, time will tell if the company will be of value. It depends on many factors that we have no influence on. We work incrementally and continuously ask the question: continue with what we are doing or sell our assets. Our aim is to provide customer with a toolbox of digital intellectual property solutions to strengthen their business models. Our goal is to offer scalable, automated and user friendly services for the registration, monitoring, analysis and protection of intellectual property online. We currently work on an image monitoring application, a blockchain solution for decentralized proof of ownership with regards to the registration of creative work and a removal copyright infringement service. Next to that we enrich the applications with analytics, so that they are useful for various personas within organizations. We think blockchain tech will be of major importance within the media industry.

(photo above: Matchhamster (table left) talking to interested media companies in June 2016)

What do you hope to accomplish over the next year(s)?
We want to progress in validating our 4 solutions (online IP registration, monitoring, business intelligence and protection) within our 3 target markets: publishing, public relations and third-party add-ons.We are building scalable solutions for registration, monitoring, analyses and protection of intellectual property. We want to validate and optimize these solutions on a MVP (Minimum Viable Product) base on a persona level (personas are sales representatives, editiorial team, lead generation units in regions, marketing, information system department, data analysts).
Furthermore we want to have a long-term relationship with customers based on persona needs and make API’s (Application programming interface) out of the validated solutions. Last we want to sell API’s to third parties.

How much has your company grown since the Matchmaking event in 2016?
We have grown from a local (The Netherlands) to an international client base and serve paying customers in the UK, Germany, Turkey, Poland, Denmark, Belgium, South Africa, France, and Canada.

Did you make matches during our MediaMatters Matchmaking event and did one of these matches grow into a collaboration?
Many matches were made. One of these matches has led to a commercial deal.

Would you recommend other companies to go to a MediaMatters Matchmaking event?
It is essential that a start-up validates its assumptions. MediaMatters has an interesting network that can be very useful for that. I would recommend start-ups to participate in a Matchmaking event, because it gives the opportunity to validate cheap and fast within a clear target group.

But make sure that you create a level playing field. Some people on the other side of the table just want to play the corporate role without bringing anything of value to the table. Just a nice match is not bringing in clearance on viability or cash. Get to the point and ask if they see a solution to a need and if they are willing to pay to test the solution.

Do you think MediaMatters had a part in the progress you have made in the last years?
We did get a customer out if it, so the answer is yes.

The second company we take a look at is Prolody. They won a startup contest in 2015. That contest led to the MediaMatters Matchmaking events as we know them today. Prolody is a team of passionate music tech people that work together to create amazing audio products. They focus on creating a better experience in producing music.

(photo above: Prolody (on the left) is one of the winners of the startup contest of the Media Park in 2015)

What was your company’s greatest accomplishment since 2015?
The development of a signature plugin together with Spinnin Records. That company is the biggest electronic dance music label in the world, located in Hilversum. It was a big honour to be the first company to develop an audio plugin together with Spinnin Records. With over 20 million followers on social media they are a strong partner for us in the music industry.

How much has your company grown since 2015?
We have two products on the market, one employee and several funded projects accomplished. Our two products are both audio signature plugins. We developed our first product at the end of 2017 together with the dutch DJ duo Sick Individuals. The plugin is called Focus One and can be downloaded and used for both Mac and PC. The second product is called BASE by Spinnin’ Records. It is also an audio signature plugin. Concurrently to the development of and audio software for the music production and technology market we are also developing novel ways of speech synthesis applications and audio software modules for social robots. The aim is to enhance the quality of the interaction between the robot and human through audio. Together with DigiNova we got funded in order to develop new speech software for social robots.

How do you feel about the future of your company?
We have some great relationships with major players in the audio technology world and with innovative and robot companies from the Netherlands. They want to (continue to) work with us in the future together. These companies are Spinnin Records, DigiNova and HIT (Heemskerk innovation technology). We also have warm contacts to German music and audio technology companies. They can help us in developing new content for the music technology industry. From this follows that we feel confident about the future of our company.

What do you hope to accomplish over the next year(s)?
We hope to be one of the driving forces in both the (online) signature audio plugin and music education market. For this we need to strength our relations with the abovementioned key players in the market. Beside of this we are aiming to bridge the gap between novel ways of online music technology and the costumer (the electronic music producers) through interactive online music education. For this we are planning to collaborate with other innovative technology driven start-ups, schools and universities (e.g. Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht) in the world in order to introduce exciting innovative and interactive online technology to the costumer.

What challenges do you face to accomplishing that goal?
The challenge will be to persuade all of our key stakeholders to believe in the goal we believe in. Our aim is to enhance the interaction between technology and human through sound. We are confident to persuade our stakeholders by sharing them our novel technology ideas and prototypes and scrutinise the impact of it upon the costumer and the music and audio industry.

Are you a startup or scale-up and you want to grow as a company? Make sure you to get in and you might be attending our next MediaMatters Matchmaking event.