Here's Our Story
Mission
Building a better ecosystem for musicians At MuzeLounge, we have a two-fold mission; Firstly, we’re developing products that allow musicians to return to their creative process. Secondly, we intend to advance the development of disruptive technology platforms to ease the pain of finding that unique sound that musicians around the world strive for.
Company
MuzeLounge is a 21st century SaaS community platform about everything music with a patent-pending ecosystem and software applications MuzeXL and MuzeEdit. It’s time for musicians to have a place to find and share their equipment settings (sounds) often called ‘Patches’ and other important music-related content.
MuzeLounge
Why did we start a music technology company?
A Musician's Sound
For all musicians, their sound is their signature and brand, it is as important as their music. The unique sounds of Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour or U2 and many others are recognized the world over. Stifled by the complexity of (electronic) MIDI-enabled music devices and instruments for the last 34 years and a complete lack of a collaborative/sharing platform, they spend too much time finding their sound rather than playing music and being creative. Musicians want to create. MIDI device/instrument manufacturers and musicians have told us they want a solution. An ideal solution would enhance a musician’s creativity potential.
Share your Sounds & More
If a musician spends much less time finding their sounds, they would spend more time playing music and be more creative. MuzeLounge will allow musicians to upload, download, buy and sell Patches and share music-related content. The community is enabled with a software-based universal controller for MIDI devices called MuzeEdit and a software-based upload/download application for Patches called MuzeXL. It’s a community with a purpose – Everything Music.
Software Applications that Connect You to a Community
MuzeXL, a MIDI Librarian (also an upload/download engine) application is free ($0) to community users to allow them to share their creativity! MuzeEdit is our MIDI Editor/Librarian that is delivered via SaaS for a nominal monthly fee. Our MuzeMarket is an e-commerce platform which for the first time permits the monetization of a musician’s sounds, or Patches. We fundamentally change how musicians collaborate, share and monetize their passion in music.
Solving a decades-old Problem
MuzeLounge was born out of Sanjay’s frustration as a musician. His 40-yr musical journey lacked a single platform combining collaboration with simplifying the use of hardware controlled MIDI-enabled devices and instruments. Sanjay envisioned MuzeLounge as the first community to enable sharing, buying and selling Patches – with cloud backup. We are the pain-killer that delivers the Internet’s library of sound combined with collaboration, universal control and e-commerce.
Team: Founders & Management
Sanjay Belkhode | Co-founder, President & CEO
As a musician for 40 years, Sanjay’s passion for music and his engineering-based 30-year high-tech career provide the perfect match for executing on the company vision. Sanjay is focused on driving growth for MuzeLounge. Through his in-depth knowledge of the music industry he is ramping up market awareness and accelerating the Company’s go-to-market strategies. Sanjay’s skills and experience are a perfect match for MuzeLounge. He has been a musician for 40 years and brings 30 years of experience in sales, IT and product hardware / software development to MuzeLounge. Prior to MuzeLounge, he has held senior sales positions at Synopsys, Cadence Design Systems, Intrinsix and MOSAID Technologies.
Mark D. Kershey | Co-Founder, Chief Operating Officer
MuzeLounge represents Mark’s entrepreneurial side and is his 7th start-up including co-founding Spartan Bioscience and iWatchLife of Ottawa. Mark also co-founded Barkley Capital Corporation in the late 1990s and channeled approx. $5mm USD into early stage Canadian technologies companies through California investors. Companies Mark has consulted, or directly assisted with financings spanning the disciplines of unstructured text analytics, facial recognition biometrics, SaaS for IP video, on-demand DNA analysis and identity verification technologies amongst others. Mark has also held CEO roles in Technology focused companies such as Panacis Inc. With 35 years in high-technology engineering, IP licensing, sales, marketing and senior management, Mark delivers a proven track record in opening new markets, establishing winning partnerships and leading financial initiatives.
Mark Houghting | Chief Financial Officer
Mark obtained his CMA designation in 1979 and has a background in corporate controllership in the manufacturing and security industries. He obtained his life insurance license in 2003 and consults with business and individuals on personal and corporate finance. He currently assists a wide variety of businesses with their accounting and tax requirements. Mark is the accountant for Spartan Bioscience, iWatchLife Inc. and MuzeLounge Inc.
Alain Maisonneuve | Software, Research & Development
Alain is a very experienced engineer and software developer with a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Carleton University of Ottawa and a Masters degree in Computational Science and Engineering from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) of Boston, USA. Alain has an excellent background in software development having developed code for diverse industries and companies such as BMO, RBC, Bell, TD Securities, the CFL, CGI, March Networks and many other projects completed as a consultant.
Our Guiding Principles
We work hard because we are passionate about music and assisting musicians. No one punches a time clock. A 3-piece suit won’t make you deliver better work. We are comfortable in relaxed attire at work. Jeans and T-shirt if you’re not meeting customers. And sometimes when we are meeting customers! Work/Life balance. We’ve been through the corporate meat grinder so we want to provide a flexible working environment. No Red Tape! If you create any red tape we’ll wrap you up in it! Anyone may challenge the CEO. We are mature enough to know what we don’t know, so speak up! We’re assisting musicians to find their unique sound faster! A global community with a common purpose. We deliver the power of creativity to all of our users. We’ll use the most advanced technology possible to make this dream happen.
Advisors
- Mark Lawrence, NorthCrest Partners
- Corien Kershey, Brand Clarity Strategic Marketing and Communications
- Stephen Webster, Hardware Engineer
- Chris Johnson, Invest Ottawa EIR, sold dna13.
- Rob Rose, Software Executive, musician
- Oliver Johnson, Hive Studios, Artistic Director, musician
- Natalie Giroux, Intellectual Property, musician
- Lance Keltner, Professional Musician, (former frontline guitarist for Rod Stewart)
- Matt Coburn, Store Manager, Long & McQuade, musician
- Wayne Eagles, Guitar performance instructor, Carleton University professor, musician.
- Craig Fitzpatrick, PageCloud CEO, musician.
