At our Music Ally NEXT conference in London this month, the closing session will focus on our annual International Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Run in association with Universal Music Group Digital Innovation, it features five nominees who have been suggested by music and technology trade bodies across the world. We’re profiling the nominees in the run-up to the event, which takes place on 18 June.
To kick off the series, today we’ve got Max Busin, founder and CEO of Gotobeat, who was nominated by Abbey Road REDD Labs and Music Technology UK.
Gotobeat is in the live-music field, using its own AI models to match “the right artist with the right city, venue and timing” to ensure that concerts sell out.
After selling 30,000 tickets in 2023 in its launch city, London, it grew to 150,000 sales in 2025, and is currently focusing on European expansion.
The origin story
“I came into music as an outsider, which people in the industry often see as a problem. For us, it became an advantage. My background is in tech, I’ve built and run a company before Gotobeat, but music has always been the constant. I’m a drummer, and even while running my last company I was organising a festival in Italy.
When I started thinking about what to build next, the answer was already there. We began by promoting shows ourselves, and the technology grew out of the gaps we kept running into: how do you forecast demand properly, route shows better, price tickets intelligently, and give artists better economics?
The mission has been the same from day one: help artists earn more from live and give them more control over their careers. To do that properly, we had to make a hard choice early. We couldn’t just sit underneath someone else’s promoter business as a tech vendor, and we couldn’t be another ticketing platform charging a fee without taking any risk.
We had to become the promoter ourselves and own the full stack. That’s the only way you can really change the outcome for the artist.”
Biggest lesson so far
“That culture and data are not opposites. They are the same thing seen from two sides.
The best gut feelings are often data the spreadsheet hasn’t learned to read yet. There is a temptation in tech to assume numbers will replace the instincts of people who have spent thirty years in the room. They won’t, and the founders who try usually get punished for it.
But the reverse is also true. Pure instinct misses patterns the data makes obvious. So the lesson runs both ways: if you want to build culture, respect data. If you want to build data, respect culture.
Our job is not to replace judgement. It is to sharpen it.”
Tips for building the best team
“Team is the entire business. The bar for us is quite specific because Gotobeat sits between two worlds. We are a tech company operating in music, not a music company that happens to use tech.
That distinction shows up in every hire. We need promoters who respect data, engineers who enjoy being at shows, and finance people who understand that a sold-out room is not just a line item — it is the product.
The traits I look for are agency, ownership, speed, and low ego. People who can move quickly, take responsibility, and find a way to get to the outcome without needing to be carried there.
The hardest part of building Gotobeat is not the technology or the shows in isolation. It is building a team that can do both at the same time.”
Potential partnerships
“We are looking for three types of partnerships in 2026. First, managers, agents, and labels working with the next tier of touring artists — especially artists in the 1,500 to 5,000 cap range.
That is where routing, pricing, marketing, and timing decisions can completely change the economics of a campaign, and it is where our forecasting is most valuable.
Second, venues and festivals that want more than a booking partner. We are interested in operators who want a partner that can bring audience intelligence, marketing capability, and a long-term artist development mindset.
Third, partners who think about the full career of an artist, not just the next tour. Live is our entry point because it is where we can create immediate value, but the data, audience relationship, and trust built through live can support much more over time.”
Funding status
“We have raised venture capital and are now finalising our next round with a mix of existing investors and new strategic partners.
We are building the company on two tracks: venture-paced, but sustainably operated. We are growing around 4x year-on-year, and the aim is to keep scaling at that pace without breaking the model. The point is to help more artists, more venues, and more partners year after year — not to burn capital for vanity scale.
So the funding strategy is simple: raise the right capital from the right partners to compound a business that already works.”
Music Ally NEXT takes place on 18 June 2026 at The Steel Yard in London. Find out more details and book your tickets here.
