Founded in 2007, Taiwan’s iKala is a cloud-based online karaoke service. Instead of buying expensive karaoke equipment bundled with soon-to-be-outdated tunes, iKala reinvents karaoke via the internet so users can enjoy it on their Samsung and LG smart TVs, PCs, and mobile devices (iOS and Android).
Today, iKala has grown to become a 36-person team, serving around 600,000 users and with about five percent of them paying NT$129 ($4.30) each month for its premium service to have full access to the song library (which includes several thousand tunes in Chinese and English). Alternatively, users can just pay $1 to sing for an entire day. On average, each user spends about 10 minutes a day singing and sharing their creations (users can also record and upload their singing). About half of them visit iKala on mobile and another half from the web.
iKala prides itself on having 100 percent legal music and it works with music labels and artists closely to license new tunes.
Connecting artists and music fans
What most people see is just the consumer facing side of iKala. But the startup also works directly with artists and music labels — what iKala calls as its B2B business model — to help them promote their music albums and events to its community of music fans. On average, iKala has one activity per week and has worked with many Chinese artists including heavyweight names like David Tao, Penny Tai, and Fish Leong.
In the future, iKala also looks to bring in pitch detection and a scoring system. The scoring system will be powered by iKala’s algorithm that measures the similarity between the voice of the original singer and the user’s.
When asked about iKala’s financial health, CEO and co-founder, Sega Cheng, declined to reveal revenue numbers but did say that the company’s cash balance is at a very healthy level. The company plans to expand its service to Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, all of which have a karaoke culture.
iKala has three angel investors and is not looking to raise more money at the moment. Sega explains that expansion doesn’t require the company to set up physical offices in Southeast Asia. Rather, it will work with local distribution partners like mobile carriers in each local market. The company aims to break even by the end of 2014.
Some folks might see similarities between iKala and China’s big hit karaoke app Changba. Yes, both are karaoke apps, but it is important to note that Changba isn’t working directly with music labels and artists, which means it could face legal issues along the way. For now, iKala looks to have the proper legal structure for expansion, which could put it ahead of the game.
You can give iKala a try on web and on your mobile (iOS and Android).
(Editing by Steven Millward and Charlie Custer)
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