What do you get when you mix elite game developers with music gaming pioneers?
Pixelynx, in a nutshell, is a startup founded in 2020 to build out a stimulating and intoxicating “new physical and digital music ecosystem for artists to launch and control their own interactive experiences through playable worlds and NFTs.”
The five Co-Founders, Richie Hawtin, Joel Zimmerman aka deadmau5, Ben Turner, Dean Wilson, and Inder Phull all bring their own unique talents to the exciting metaverse cauldron that intends to change the future with Web3.
A key aspect of why Pixelynx is such an exciting startup is its portal to the music metaverse, The Musicverse™. In partnership with Niantic’s Lightship SDK, the creators of Pokémon Go, Pikmin Bloom & Ingress, The Musicverse is — powered by state-of-the-art ML and generative technology — an industry-first planet-scale augmented reality music game packed with one-of-a-kind playable NFTs.
Pixelynx
By going to concerts and exploring the world, you are able to unlock unique playable NFTs created by your favourite artists in this novel music-based AR experience.
The Musicverse is not all Pixelynx has to offer — the LynxLabs programme venture fund focuses on developing the next wave of music and entertainment ventures.
EXPLORE AND CONNECT WITH YOUR FAVOURITE ARTISTS, FESTIVALS & BRANDS
— Pixelynx’s portal to the metaverse™
The Magnificent Five
The Co-Founders’ diverse set of skills can only propel Pixelynx forward:
Richie Hawtin, an electronic musician and DJ, three-time DJ Awards winner who started his disc jockey career in Detroit techno’s second wave in the early 1990s, is also a serial entrepreneur who co-founded Plus 8 Equities, a music technology fund, ENTER. SAKE, a sake brand in the US and Europe, as well as the CLOSER App, allows fans to deconstruct the audio from his own live performances while toggling multiple camera angles of the performance.
Like Hawtin, fellow Co-Founder and the man in the deadmau5 mask, Joel Zimmerman, is also a DJ and electronic music producer who has been nominated for a GRAMMY Award.
Dean Wilson, on the other hand, is the CEO and Founder of SEVEN20, a technology and entertainment company. SEVEN20 was originally founded in 2018 to overturn the traditional music management model in favour of a partnership-based approach that fully empowers its artists, but in the time since, the company has adopted even bigger goals. Through the freedom of the blockchain, SEVEN20 seeks to push the entire music and entertainment industry forward with new IP and equity deals only possible with this technology.
Wilson is an influential and innovative figure within the electronic music industry as well as the longtime manager for his Co-Founder, Joel Zimmerman — who he signed to one of the industry’s first-ever 360 deals in 2007. With SEVEN20’s new pivot, he and deadmau5 are taking what they’ve learned from years of owning and controlling their own masters and publishing, and looking into the radical new future that the blockchain enables for the industry.
Wilson started out as a DJ and record shop owner in London. In the early 1990s, he founded AnD Press and oversaw manufacturing, distribution, and licensing globally for its acts for 10 years. As he progressed into production work, Wilson co-produced British pop sensation Daniel Bedingfield’s 2001 debut single “Gotta Get Thru This,” a platinum-selling smash that hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart and earned a GRAMMY Award nomination for “Best Dance Recording.”
Driven by his love for cultivating the careers of up-and-coming artists, Wilson later co-founded Three Six Zero Group, the music management company responsible for discovering world-famous DJ Calvin Harris. The company started in London and expanded to L.A., New York, and Berlin. In 2018, he began his new venture to highlight his current client roster with SEVEN20. Now, drawing on the same futurist impulses that have inspired him all along, Dean Wilson is pushing SEVEN20 in a new direction that anticipates where the whole industry will soon be headed.
Wilson has appeared on Billboard’s “Top 30 EDM Power Players” and Rolling Stone’s “50 Most Important People in EDM” lists.
These three bring creative flair and music industry expertise to the team, giving them a leg up over others in the space.
Ben Turner is a Director at Graphite Media and another serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple companies.
The final Co-Founder, and probably Pixelynx’s most important person, is CEO Inder Phull, who has spent his career founding companies, taking up advisory roles in the music and gaming industries and as an investor.
Based in London, Vancouver and Los Angeles, Pixelynx has raised a total of $4.5 million in a Seed funding round finalized in late 2021, with the likes of Mark Cuban and investment firm HOF Capital on board as investors.
As with gaming, music is going to be one of the cornerstones of the Metaverse. And Pixelynx, it seems, is taking a leading role in that vibrant niche.
