GUITAR LEARNING APP FRETELLO DOWNLOADS EXPLODE BOOSTED BY COOPERATION WITH MUSIC GIANT YAMAHA AND THOMANN

AFTER NUMEROUS INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATIONS – WITH APPLE, SONY/ATV AND EMI, AMONG OTHERS – THE LINZ GUITAR LEARNING START-UP “FRETELLO” IS NOW LAUNCHING ANOTHER PARTNERSHIP WITH TWO GLOBAL GIANTS OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY: THE INTERNATIONALLY LEADING MUSICAL INSTRUMENT MANUFACTURER YAMAHA AND THE WORLD’S LARGEST ONLINE GUITAR DEALER THOMANN IS NOW OFFERING A FREE TRIAL OF FRETELLO WITH THE PURCHASE OF A GUITAR FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Every partnership is an important milestone on a startup’s international road to success; So does Fretello: “The partnerships with Yamaha and Thomann bring us a big step closer to our vision. Together we enable our core target group – motivated guitar beginners and hobby artists – a flexible introduction to the instrument and accompany them in the long term. Fretello is not a replacement for personal guitar lessons, but a perfect complement that is fun. Music students experience real results in a playful way and stay motivated,” says Florian Lettner, co-founder and CEO of Fretello.

„START SMALL – DREAM BIG“

Inspiring people to play music: With the global campaign “Start Small – Dream Big”, Yamaha is awakening enthusiasm for music and making it easier for beginners in particular to start learning a musical instrument. The manufacturer brought the Linz start-up Fretello on board as the world’s only guitar campaign partner. As part of the brand collaboration, hundreds of thousands of customers are now getting a free trial subscription to use the guitar learning app Fretello when they buy a guitar. The world’s largest online music mail order company, Thomann, from Germany, has recently started using Fretello’s digital music learning platform: a free trial subscription to Fretello is now included with every guitar purchase via the online shop. Experience has shown that every second customer decides to become a paying customer after the trial subscription. 90% of these users stay with us for at least a year or more. In the coming months, the founders Florian Lettner and Wolfgang Damm are expecting up to 100,000 new subscriptions per month – this will make the Linz app a Runtastic in the music world.

CHANGE IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AS AN OPPORTUNITY

The decisive factor for the two strategic cooperations is the upheaval in music education and the changed behavior of users since the Corona pandemic. More and more music students prefer flexible and digital music lessons. As a result, institutions such as music schools are now increasingly looking for digital partners. Both partnerships take account of this development and Fretello’s international growth course, which is preceded by several rounds of financing worth millions.
“We are delighted to be part of this unique success story through the syndicate fund of the European Super Angel Club “EXF Alpha”. The two founders Florian Lettner – himself a thoroughbred musician – and Wolfgang Damm are entrepreneurs with heart and soul. We’ve been following the start-up for a few years and decided to invest this year. The energy in the cooperation is great, we not only dream big, we are now also playing with big partners on the world stage,” explains Berthold Baurek-Karlic, President of the European Super Angels Club and CEO of Venionaire Capital.
The Europe-wide partnerships with Yamaha and Thomann confirm what experts have known for a long time: In our extremely fast-moving society, with constantly changing framework conditions, demanding, responsible customers who have precise ideas about a product, large corporates need the knowledge that Flexibility and proximity to the consumer, which in turn only start-ups have. In this specific case, Yamaha and Thomann benefit from the short decision-making processes, the high level of adaptability and the extremely fast responsiveness of Fretello and are always state of the art with the technically highly experienced team around the two founders. Conversely, the Linz start-up benefits in terms of their distribution channels, to an immense extent from the Europe-wide partnerships that have come about thanks to the European Super Angels Club and the associated networks.

THE WORLD’S FIRST FULLY IMMERSIVE AUGMENTED REALITY MUSIC EXPERIENCE

Fretello created the world’s first augmented reality music learning experience and is the only music learning app that provides learners with real-time feedback – the kind you would only get from a guitar teacher. The app relies on an algorithm that analyzes aspects such as pitch, tempo and playing technique, recognizes the guitarist and the instrument via the smartphone’s front camera and gives immediate feedback. A service that is otherwise only available with a personal teacher. The content in the app is created exclusively by certified and didactically trained musicians. Learning motivation through gamification and songs from the Sony and Kobalt catalogs to play along complete the systematic concept. This well thought-out methodology motivates especially beginning guitarists to keep going. Since it was founded, over 1 million guitarists have registered with Fretello. The app has been growing in popularity for years: Apple became aware of Fretello as early as 2019 and has been advertising the products regularly in the App Store ever since. The guitar learning app also has other instruments in its sights in the future.

ABOUT THE EUROPEAN SUPER ANGELS CLUB

In 2017, the partners from Venionaire Capital and KPMG Austria founded the European Super Angels Club. Inspired by the idea of connecting Europe’s best startups with investors. The Liechtensteinische Landesbank, the law firm Binder Grösswang, international law firms such as Sheppherd-Wedderburn, accelerators such as Wayra (telefonica) and many others have supported the club from the start.

ABOUT FRETELLO

Fretello GmbH (fretello.com) is an Austrian EdTech startup. The company develops mobile apps to help musicians learn musical instruments through interactive learning content. In addition, Fretello is a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence on mobile devices. In 2019, the startup, in cooperation with Apple, presented the world’s first fully immersive augmented reality learning experience. Fretello helps beginning musicians learn guitar with a systematic approach so they can achieve their goals. The company cooperates with well-known music teachers and certified music schools from Austria.