humit, a social music app is re-imagining the way people discover music and share it. This startup aims to engage music enthusiasts into a community-driven platform by reinventing music sharing and discovery by letting users share the most powerful moments from their favourite songs, create micro-communities and engage with fellow music lovers in completely new ways.
A brainchild of BITS Pilani graduates Rohit Ganapathy, Prithvi Sankar and Ishaan Negi, this start-up was founded in 2020 to incorporate a social media approach to the usual audio consumption and music discovery. Rohit Ganapathy, Co-founder and Head of Product, Humit, said, “With humit, we are decoding the nuances of sharing music recommendations with a friend, and what it means to be able to express yourself through your taste in music. This is a core desire, and what we believe will scale globally. A shared taste in music is known to be one of the best icebreakers and we are working on designing unique experiences around this.”
Traditional streaming platforms use algorithms to recommend music, but humit, through its community-driven approach to discover new music, makes the process for the audience engaging and inter-personal. Currently, it is only integrated with Spotify but integrations across platforms such as Apple Music, YouTube Music and SoundCloud are in the works. The app has user moderated channels called ‘stations’ in various genres which the user can choose according to their liking. The ‘hum’ is a part of the song which the user shares on their profile and is visible to others which further redirects the user to the entire song on Spotify.
The app has gained a lot of traction in India, USA and the global market. It is also home to 500+ stations created by users across 42 countries. The user can also interact with fellow users if they like the ‘hum’ or the clipping of the song shared. It is giving a social aspect to music enthusiasts for music sharing, discovery and interactivity. “We have several examples of super fans and folks who’ve never met each other before, building cross-border friendships by discovering each other’s music stations. This is truly rewarding to see, and tells us we are onto something special,” says Co-founder Prithvi Sankar.
This nascent start-up also raised pre-seed funding from Antler India followed by other investors and angels from renowned companies like CARS24, Bluejeans, Pixxel, Exotel, Oyo Rooms and many more. Antler is a global early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the defining technology companies of tomorrow. It plans to deploy $100M in 100+ Indian start-ups over the next 3 years.
humit has also started a campaign called Campus Jockey Program. This program is to invite college students to join their inner circle of users from 50+ colleges globally. Humit Campus Jockey is a global community of college ambassadors united by their passion for music. You can know more about this program and apply for it here.
Key Features of the app:
- Easy connect with Spotify.
- Being able to select multiple genres of music called stations while setting up your account.
- A seperate playlist on your Spotify called “My Humit Collection” with all your saved humit hums.
- An international audience using the platform.
- Access to the best part of the song aka the ‘hum’ based on the person who uplaods it.
- Lets the user reply to the person posting a hum.
- Has the concept of ‘likes’ for a hum.
- Once you listen to a hum, you can directly go to Spotify by clicking on the icon and listen to the entire song.
- You can also send the hum you like to your followers on the Humit app.
- Option to extend your hum upto 30 seconds.
- While uploading a hum, you can either share with your followers or under any music station which you have selected initially and also add a caption.
- Building a community and interacting with like-minded people through the message option by replying to a hum. (Haven’t tried this part yet.)
All in all, after using the app myself, it is a great idea and initiative. I discovered a few songs and I’m able to easily share songs without copy-pasting the link on another platform and switching between apps. While the concept of selecting my favourite part of the song is similar to Instagram music, but here I can directly play the song on Spotify which isn’t possible on Instagram music. This app is indeed here to make life easier and to make music listening and discovery more engaging and interesting. To put it simply, it is like Instagram for music!
To know more details about the app, check out their website here.
