Berlin startup SIRIUS raises $4M for online music school

Berlin-based music school startup SIRIUS has raised $4 million Seed funding. 

91 per cent of music teachers are self-employed and struggle with job uncertainty, while students in urban areas face long waiting times. The sound quality in online music lessons is very poor, as conventional video conferencing classifies musical tones as background noise. 

SIRIUS offers students and teachers a flexible and state-of-the-art way of learning music. Students of all ages and skill levels can find qualified music teachers for their one-to-one online piano, guitar and singing lessons. 

The platform matches students with suitable teachers. It schedules lessons, ensures excellent sound quality for online lessons, and offers virtual piano, sheet music, metronome, recording, and learning access.

SIRIUS was co-founded in 2020 by data scientist and enthusiastic piano player Sebastian Riegelbauer. In collaboration with the Karajan Academy, the talent school of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, he developed SIRIUS as a SaaS video conferencing tool for musicians. 

Cellist Charlotte von Dryander joined the SIRIUS team in early 2022 as co-founder and co-Managing Director. She is responsible for the company's commercial areas and has worked with partners such as Yamaha, Thomann, and Kirstein to develop SIRIUS into a digital music learning platform. 

Sebastian Riegelbauer, co-founder and co-director of SIRIUS, shared: 

"COVID has shown how urgently music teaching needs to be digitised. SIRIUS aims to offer students and teachers an alternative to traditional analogue teaching and make music education accessible worldwide. 

We are excited that we were able to convince renowned investors and experts of our idea right from the start."

Market One Capital led the round, which included:

• Severin Zugmayer (partner at New Renaissance Ventures and former board member of GoStudent).
• Angel Invest (early-stage investor in Preply and CoachHub).
• Lopo Champalimaud (founder of Treatwell).
• Nicole Büttner (founder of Merantix Momentum).
• Marius Luther and Marius Jeuck (founders of HeyJobs).

According to Marcin Zabielski, Partner at Market One Capital: 

"We firmly believe that technology can enhance the way people learn music without compromising its human element. That's why we chose to invest in Sirius, where the founders have an ambitious vision of creating the largest pan-European online music school."

SIRIUS plans to use the funding to drive growth and product development and expand its engineering and marketing teams. It plans to introduce AI to reduce administrative overhead for music teachers, summarise and analyse lessons, create tailored lesson plans and practice materials and provide interactive feedback to students during practice. 

With AI technology taking over administrative tasks, teachers can focus entirely on human interaction with their students - an aspect that technology cannot replace.

Lead image: SIRIUS. Photo: uncredited.