One of the UK’s most highly-rated tech entrepreneurs has unveiled plans for his music discovery and promotions platform to become the “Amazon of the music industry”.
Gilbert Corrales relocated his business Leaf FM from Costa Rica to Newcastle following an approach by the UKTI and has already become the number one music app in over 15 countries in Latin America and made the top 10 music apps in a third of the countries in the world.
Corrales is one of 14 speakers taking part at BusinessCloud’s ‘Tech entrepreneurs who want to change the world’ conference on June 20 at Liverpool’s Exhibition Centre.
The other speakers include Lawrence Jones, CEO, UKFast; Richard Law, CEO, GB Group; Paul Kenyon, joint chief executive, Avecto; Steve Oliver, founder/ CEO, Music Magpie; Simon Wilkinson, chairman, RealityMine; and Cathal Berragan, head of campaigns, The Social Chain.
Speaking ahead of his appearance, he told BusinessCloud: “We have got iOS out since September last year and we have got north of half a million downloads from over 195 countries.
“Android recently joined the party just over weeks ago and we are now at 100,000.
“Music is broken and needs a fix. Whoever does it will become the next billion-dollar darling – and we are aiming at that.
“We bootstrapped Leaf until it was ready for fuel. We were then lucky to attract the right kind of investors in our first round last year, a powerful combination of VC plus angels.
“Things are starting to pick up steam and we are looking to capitalise on the opportunities presented ahead of us. We are already seeing a very healthy interest from people in London.
“People want to support and pay the artists they love, it just happens that, for the most part, the avenues haven’t existed and that’s where we see ourselves playing a role.
“We see ourselves as the number one music retail platform in the world. The Amazon of all things music.”