Music Collaboration App Nana Releases Beta, Global Launch Coming Soon

Tokyo startup Nana Music has just introduced an iPhone app (currently only available in Japan) that allows users to sing, play songs, and collaborate with other users on their Nana platform. It’s still a beta version but it is expected to release its official English version, launching worldwide within in the next two months.

With voices and sounds recorded with smartphone microphones, the app allows users to share and mix their audio with other users on the platform. The startup aims to bring new users the experience of singing with someone and enables one to even team up with a band or a choir — even with people living far away in different parts of the world.

The founder is aspiring professional singer and Kobe-raised entrepreneur Akinori Fumihara a.k.a. Unio (meaning an ‘urchin man’ in Japanese). He was deeply inspired by “We are the World 25 for Haiti,” a charity relief song from 2010, and co-founded the startup with four other music lovers.

Their idea was unveiled for the first time at the TechCrunch Tokyo 2011 Conference which showcased notable 11 Japanese startups last November. The team was chosen to participate in Movida Japan’s acceleration program, a Japanese startup incubator, and won the grand prize at an (unofficial) preliminary pitch event at SXSW 2012.