Balderton leads $12.8m series-A round for Roli

The capital will be used to increase production of the company's Seaboard Grand product, to add to its management and product engineering teams and to invest in new products. It will also enable Roli to fund international expansion, initially targeting the US market.

Index Ventures and US venture player FirstMark Capital also took part in the round alongside Universal Music.

Roli's Seaboard Grand is a keyboard with a soft continuous surface that allows musicians to employ different musical techniques not usually associated with pianos.

Balderton stated it was attracted to the deal by the quality of design and technology associated with Roli's products and by the company's innovative interface for creating music.

Index and Balderton also recently co-invested in a $12m round for newly created Swedish company Sinch, a communications spinout of Rebtel.

Company
London-based Roli is a producer of technology-focused musical instruments. It has distributed the Seaboard Grand across 34 countries and reports waiting lists of up to one year for the product. The company was founded in 2012 and has a headcount of 33.

People
Roland Lamb is the founder and CEO of Roli. Daniel Waterhouse, a partner at Balderton, will take a seat on the board. Amish Jani is managing director at FirstMark and will also take a seat on the board.

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• Topics
• Expansion
• Technology
• UK / Ireland
• United Kingdom
• Balderton Capital
• Index Ventures