At the company ROLI somehow it never gets boring. If there are no new products (Blocks series, Seaboard…) then it’s mostly about the future of the company. After their acquirement of JUCE in 2014 and FXpansion in 2016, the company announced this week another major new addition to the brand. No other than Pharrell Williams (producer for many pop songs or also for the song Happy) has invested in the music company ROLI and will become in near future the new chief creative officer. Beside Jordan Rudess who work also closely with the ROLI Team is Pharrell Williams now the second big player who join the young UK based company.
In an interview with Business Insider, Lamb (CEO) said that Williams and ROLI had similar product designed for musical devices. “”[He] had particular product concepts that he thought would really help people to learn and engage with music that happened to be very close to product concepts that we were already thinking about and working on,” he said. “It was far from a sale, we started talking and we were like ‘whoa, we’re thinking about the same things, we’ve got to do this together.'”
It’s exciting to see how ROLI tries to grow as a company and to offer its new innovative products to a wider audience. Often, the music company lacks the whole money to go through it. So they often stay in their cosmos and reach only customers who have been dealing with instruments for some time. With their recent money collections as well as various company acquisitions, they strengthen the power of the company but also tries to leave this “geekish” instrument cosmos. With the latest products from the Block series, they have already taken a step into the larger consumer world. Now with the partnership with Pharell Williams, they will try to enter even more in this consumer market where they want to offer music instrument not only to pro musicians but also customers who doesn’t have yet any instruments.
I think it will be very interesting to see how well they can change the music instruments market. ROLI has one big advantage compared to other companies with innovative products. They have the financial power. Whether the money, celebrity influencer and good products are sufficient to reach the mass market (smartphones, laptops, games…) will be seen in the future. So much you can say: it remains exciting.
Beside this new collaboration, ROLI also launched already an “Happy by Pharrell” soundpack for the NOISE app that allows musicians to play the sounds from this track.
Source: Business Insider
More information here: ROLI
Available here: NOISE
Good luck, you just lost me as a user. I absolutely abhor ‘celebrity’ endorsements of any kind! If he used the product fine, yet this sort of marketing is cynical and just plain stupid!
Thanks for your input Modern3. Pharrell Williams invested with an unknown amount of money in the company. So he is involved in the decisions. Celebrity endorsement is different. A company ask a celebrity and he play the instrument on concerts, make videos and talk why it’s great. He has here another role with his investment.
That is actually inaccurate. Based on their own PR this is essentially ‘sweat equity’ in exchange for an equity in the company! An exchange for his ‘ideas’ because he has shown to be so brilliant, for what the CEO termed a partnership, which at best is inaccurate, and at worst nothing more than a cheap endorsement! And this is ROLI’s fourth round of raising capital, to date which has exceeded $160 million yet they are burning through cash as they have generously lined their own pockets!
Lol, I was actually considering a Roli product… not now!
Roli have got it way wrong this time.
Roli thinks they are some kind of Steve Jobs apple company in the music technology world. Well they are NOT. Their Roli Seaboard was ridiculously overpriced at the launch date, and it is very awkward to play as a keyboard instrument. They can better make cool products than go on this celebrity money making tour that they are doing now. Screw them.