Exclusive: Indaband's new app lets you create music with people around the world

A new social media app called Indaband lets musicians and vocalists collaborate with others and make music with people all over the world. The app is designed to make people who usually play an instrument on their own feel like they’re part of a worldwide band (get it, Indaband?). Record a video of yourself playing an instrument and others can stitch in videos of themselves playing their own instruments on top of your original recording.

All you need to get started on Indaband is a pair of headphones and a smartphone to record yourself. You can choose to upload prerecorded files as new tracks or open the app’s recording booth to record your tracks on top of someone else’s. You can record and mix unlimited video tracks in different sessions using the app’s multitrack video studio and share them with your community. Indaband notifies you when someone collaborates with one of your tracks, so you can see how they added their own take on your content.

The app is the brainchild of CEO Daniel Murta, CTO Andrews Medina, Head of Engineering Helielson Santos and Design Leader Emerson Farias. The co-founders came up with the idea for the app when they were working at a legal technology company called Jusbrasil, which Murta co-founded.

They all used to get together to play music during happy hours after work, and once the pandemic hit, they came up with the idea for Indaband so they could still play music together while in quarantine. The group then spent their weekends working on Indaband and eventually ended up leaving Jusbrasil to focus on Indaband full-time.

“Music creation is very hard and involves complex software. So, the whole idea was to redesign this process from scratch and make it simple and out of your smartphone,” Murta told TechCrunch. “The idea was that we would unlock musical expression to a different level to make it simple to collaborate and co-create music.”

Indaband helps users discover songs and jam sessions with daily curated playlists that dive into different genres, like rock, jazz, hip-hop and EDM. Users can like and comment on videos and repost them to their followers.

Indaband plans on launching a new feature called “Circles” that Murta compares to clubs on Strava. Circles will allow users to build their own communities on the app and possibly even hold live events. Indaband may also develop a Patreon-like feature within Circles that would allow established creators to offer paid content. For instance, an established musician could offer virtual lessons on an instrument that they have mastered.

While Indaband’s early adopters are skilled musicians who are comfortable sharing their music and recording themselves, Indaband eventually plans to target musicians and singers who are just starting out.

“We want to be known as a place where the musical community flourishes,” Murta said. “There is no place for musical communities right now. So the idea is to be known for that, and our strategy is to make it easy to create, and allow everyone to join the creation process.”

Indaband raised $7 million in seed funding in late 2021. The funding round included several angel investors, including Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and former Megadeth guitar player Kiko Loureiro. The round also included funding from several Latin American VC firms, including Monashees, Astella and Upload Ventures.

The app is free and is available on iOS and Android.