Roli is a London-based music tech startup that designs expressive, touch-sensitive hardware and companion software for music creation. Its primary products include the Seaboard keyboard and modular ROLI BLOCKS pads, both covered in a pressure-sensitive material that lets users press, smudge and tap to shape sounds. The company says it is building a fully integrated hardware-software platform and plans to expand its range of connected instruments and the software that runs on them. Roli sells devices in 30 markets, has a retail deal with Apple, and prices its main building blocks from roughly $200 up to about $3,000 depending on configuration. Financially, Roli reports total capital raised as “over $50 million” (PitchBook previously recorded around $46 million); a January 2017 round implied a valuation near $82 million. Strategic and financial backers named in the articles include Sony Innovation Fund, Universal Music, Pharrell Williams, Onkyo and a syndicate of technology VCs such as Index Ventures, Foundry Group and Balderton. Roli is a London-based startup that builds touch-and-sound music creation hardware, including the Seaboard and modular Blocks instruments. The company’s core products are a new style of keyboard and modular instruments that let users create music by touch and sound. Pharrell Williams has joined Roli as an investor and Chief Creative Officer and will collaborate on product development and create content. Roli has raised just under $50 million to date; its Series B of $27 million was led by Foundry Group and PitchBook reported the post-money Series B valuation at around £60 million (about $80M). Founder and CEO Roland Lamb said the company plans to raise more to fuel growth as a global platform and that a follow-on round is underway per PitchBook. Roli aims to deepen ties with artists to better design tools for what musicians need and to build the next generation of devices beyond Seaboard and Blocks. ROLI builds expressive electronic musical instruments, best known for the silicone-key Seaboard GRAND and the MIDI-controller RISE. The Seaboard offers five dimensions of touch, enabling complex gestures like sliding up and down keys; RISE applies the GRAND’s design to a MIDI controller form factor. Hardware sales are in roughly 200 retail locations worldwide, and the company has recently expanded into India and Japan. ROLI is shifting focus toward software and platform development, having acquired the JUCE framework and social music platform Blend.io, and plans to build out sounds, software, and connectivity. The company has scaled headcount from around 20 to just under 100, with about 20% of the team located in the U.S., and is hiring product, engineering, and marketing staff in Europe and the U.S. Management says it will increase R&D investment (including new sensor technologies) and is preparing a major update to the GRAND. Roli is a London-based music technology startup led by founder and CEO Roland Lamb. The company develops the Seaboard GRAND, a musical instrument that reimagines the piano keyboard as a soft, continuous surface and blends traditional piano mechanics with digital control. Roli intends to use recent funding to expand operations in Asia and to research alternative strategies for producing its GRAND. The company raised a $3.7m Series A follow-on investment from Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures. Roli had previously raised $12.8m in the same round. It currently employs over 50 people, with staff also based in the Far East and New York. ROLI builds the Seaboard GRAND, a radical keyboard instrument with soft rubber keys that allow multidimensional expressive control. The company also develops the Equator sound engine and intends to apply that engine across additional 3D devices and instruments. ROLI plans a line of future music hardware and software products built around the same technology. The $12.8M Series A will be used to scale production capacity to meet demand and to accelerate the product roadmap. The team has grown from three people to 33, and founder Roland Lamb developed the Seaboard prototype after inventing it in 2009 while studying design. Investors and company commentary highlight ROLI as part of London’s emerging tech ecosystem.

Total raised

$44M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

May 2016