Baidu Invests in Music Education Company Tonara

Chinese Internet giant Baidu invests $5 million into a music education company.

Today, Tonara, a music education technology company, announced a $5 million investment round led by Baidu and Carmel Ventures. Baidu’s investment and partnership is aimed at accelerating Tonara’s growth, particularly in China, the world’s largest music education market.

Existing investors also participated in the round. Baidu’s Senior Director of Corporate Development, Peter Fang, will be joining Tonara’s board.

“Tonara’s mission is to redefine the way music is taught, learned and practiced around the world by bringing music education into the digital age. We are excited by Baidu’s endorsement of Tonara’s vision and potential” said Guy Bauman, CEO of Tonara. “The new funding will enable us to scale and reach music students and teachers globally. We’re thrilled to cooperate with Baidu in reaching out to the Chinese audience”

“Tonara has consistently pushed the envelope when it comes to developing innovative and revolutionary technology,” said Peter Fang of Baidu. “Not only is there a huge global market for Tonara’s music education platform, a large piece of which is China, but we see many other possible applications for Tonara’s technology.  We are certain that Tonara’s future will be extraordinary, and we’re proud to be a part of it.” 

The company currently offers two apps: Tonara, a fully digitized sheet music platform for professional and amateur musicians which, follows played music, flips the pages during rehearsal and performance, and offers an extensive catalog of scores.

The Wolfie app for teachers and students was launched in 2014. Based on the same proprietary technology, Wolfie is transforming music education by using an iPad to create an interactive and engaging music learning experience. Wolfie supports teacher-student communication and features an extensive catalogue of music lessons organized by levels.

Tonara and Wolfie’s music catalog is constantly expanding thanks to partnerships with music publishers. The company will be announcing new partnerships with major music publishers in the coming months, further developing the catalogue 

Tonara launched in 2011 with an industry-first interactive digital music sheet app for the iPad that has been embraced by performers on stage as well as by amateur players.