Sonation

Website http://www.sonation.net

Founded 2013

Employees 5

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Overview

We're building a self-expression platform where people can sing or play an instrument with music/video/360 video that adapts to their style in real time, and share their expression with others. Our first app Cadenza serves instrumentalists of all ages, was featured by Apple as Best New App in 2015, 40K users. MassChallenge Finalist 2014, Harvard Deans' Challenge winner, Harvard i-lab VIP team.

Video Pitch

Management Team

Cofounder, Chief Product Officer

Paul Smith

Paul has 20+ years of experience managing digital products. He was CEO and Cofounder of MIT AI Lab spin-off Smith Renaud, Inc., and raised $2.6 million to provide software services to website curators, marketing departments and the publishing industry. He was the manager of digital communications at Rockefeller and Yale University. He founded audio production company Fauxharmonic and studied conducting with Leonard Bernstein.

Cofounder, CEO

Ann Chao

Ann is a Harvard MBA, former consultant at Roland Berger, and member of the Executive Strategy team advising the president of Lincoln Center. She has served multinational corporations in corporate strategy, branding, international expansion, and new venture planning, and worked on strategy for new media projects at Guillermo Del Toro's studio. She is fluent in Mandarin. She has studied piano since age 5 and performed a recital in Carnegie Hall.

Cofounder, CTO

Chris Raphael

Chris is the inventor of Sonation’s technology and an expert in accompaniment systems and machine learning. He is the Chair of Computer Science at Indiana University Bloomington, and holds adjunct appointments in the Jacobs School of Music, Cognitive Science, and Statistics. He received his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Brown University. He has received over $1.4 million in NSF grants for his research.

VP of Engineering

Bruce Cichowlas

Bruce was Cofounder of Kurzweil Music Systems alongside Ray Kurzweil and Stevie Wonder. He was Lead Designer of Cakewalk Guitar Studio, the first guitar product by Cakewalk (now owned by Gibson). He designed polyphonic keyboard and guitar synthesizers for ARP Instruments, and was Principal Software Engineer at France Telecom R&D/Orange Labs and Nokia. Bruce has designed and developed apps for eCommerce, games, social networking and music.

Senior Engineer

Travis Henspeter

Travis is a mobile developer with a deep statistics background who has been building award-winning audio/music apps since 2012. His apps have been featured by Apple as "Best New App" in 2014 and ranked in the top 10 paid music apps. He is an avid musician and songwriter, and taught guitar for 9 years.

Marketing Manager

Jessica Wang

Jessica holds a BA from Harvard and a Master of Music from Juilliard. Prior to Sonation she worked in digital and referral marketing and social media for a wellness organization serving millennials worldwide. An accomplished cellist, she regularly performs in classical/contemporary crossover ensembles and theater productions around New York.