Simply (formerly JoyTunes) is a privately held company developing software that teaches creative hobbies, from playing music to drawing and more. The company started out creating mobile apps that teach learners around the world how to play musical instruments, initially the piano and recorder and later branching out to other instruments such as guitar[1] with an interactive note recognition engine called MusicSense[2] that listens to the learner's playing and offer real-time feedback, utilizing acoustic learning for piano, guitar, or singing.[3]
 | |
| Industry | Education Technology |
|---|---|
| Founders | Yuval Kaminka, Yigal Kaminka, Roey Izkovsky |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | Yuval Kaminka, (CEO) Roey Izkovsky, (CTO) Yigal Kaminka, (Musical Director) |
| Products | Simply Piano Simply Guitar Simply Sing Simply Tune Simply Draw Piano Maestro Piano Dust Buster |
| Website | https://www.hellosimply.com/ |
In July 2022, what was then JoyTunes announced that it was rebranding as Simply,[4] corresponding with the company's leading products[5] Simply Piano, Simply Guitar, Simply Sing, Simply Tune and branching out beyond music, with Simply Draw.
Investors
editSimply raised $7M from angel investors and VCs. In August 2014, Simply raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Aleph VC and with participation from Formation 8 and Genesis Partners.[6] Angel investors include the former CEO of Steinway Musical Instruments, Dana Messina and Zohar Gilon.[7]
In 2019, Simply announced that it raised $25 million in a round led by Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm Qumra Capital and later that year raised $50 million from Google Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and Hearst Ventures.[8] The company has raised $97 million to date.[9]
References
edit- ^ "'Best App Deals of the Day!'". Yahoo. 27 September 2016.
- ^ Tsafir, Yoni (2018-12-20). "A look under-the-hood of Simply Piano (Part 2)". Medium. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
- ^ "To Take Up a Musical Instrument, First Pick Up Your Phone". The New York Times. 14 September 2016.
- ^ Hitman, Nadia (2022-09-21). "Brand Evolution Through a Product Methodology. From JoyTunes to Simply". Aleph. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
- ^ "About Simply | Bringing people together". hellosimply.com. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
- ^ Chernova, Yuliya (2014-08-12) JoyTunes Collects $5M to Make it Fun to Learn to Play Music, The Wall Street Journal. Archived 2017-07-07 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Empson, Rip (May 5, 2013). "JoyTunes Lands $1.5M, Releases New App to Help You Learn to Play Instruments Through Interactive Mobile Games". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2024-05-22.
- ^ "JoyTunes raising $50m at $1b valuation". Globes. 2021-06-21. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
- ^ Hazani, Golan (2021-06-21). "JoyTunes joins unicorn club with $50 million round led by Google's investment arm". CTECH - www.calcalistech.com. Retrieved 2022-10-19.