Sensbeat, a Hong Kong music sharing startup, gets funding to close $1M seed round

Sensbeat, a Hong Kong-based startup that lets users pair music with photos through a mobile app, announced today it has secured an additional US$500,000 in funding from HeungKong Group, bringing its total funding to date to US$1 million. The team has also flown to Silicon Valley to join the Plug and Play Accelerator.

“After a few meetups they were very interested in our product. We felt there was good chemistry between us. They also have various resources that could potentially help us differentiate in China,” Leo Wong, co-founder of Sensbeat, tells Tech in Asia. “For now it’s more on the investment side, but later on we might look for other strategic partnerships in Asia.”

Launched in August 2014 by a group of students at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Sensbeat is an app designed to help people share their moods, with the help of music. Users can upload photos and pair them with any song that’s licensed in iTunes. Friends can then flip through posts that peers in their network have shared. It’s a cute concept, but like any social app, it will need a lot of muscle and some luck before it reaches a critical mass of users.

Wong says that Sensbeat has accumulated 5,000 users – which is below his team’s expectations. In an effort to drive growth, the team is looking to find experienced mentors in California, and network with influential Hong Kong bloggers who can help drive attention to the app.

“We’re hoping to learn from two perspectives – product and growth,” says Wong. “We want to connect with people that have been in social media for a long period of time and ask for feedback in these areas.”