SCADpro Fund digs Deepr

“Technology has advanced everyone’s access to music,” says Deepr founder and CEO Austin Webster (B.F.A., industrial design, 2006). “As music lovers in the streaming era, there’s nothing nicer than making a music discovery that speaks to your soul.”

At this nexus of exploration and curation, Webster and co-founder and COO Darrell Thompson have created a suite of Deepr products, chief among them the Deepr App, rooted in an unabashed love of music.

“The first time I met Austin and Darrell, we spent hours breaking bread and swapping stories about Muscle Shoals, Muddy Waters, and the future of music and tech,” says SCADpro Fund managing director Ray Crowell. “Their passion, business hustle, and devotion to creators made it an easy choice for SCADpro Fund to invest.”

A streaming discovery tool, currently available to download for iOS and Android devices, the Deepr App coordinates with users’ Apple Music, Spotify, and/or YouTube accounts, using audio recognition technology to instantly identify a song, as well as diving into advanced options including songwriting, sampling, and musician and production credits. “Our proprietary technology connects the dots between millions of songs, enabling listeners to craft personalized playlists in an instant,” Webster explains.

As a high school student at Ridgeway H.S. in Memphis, Tennessee, Webster hoped someday to design sneakers like the coveted joints he saw in Kicks Magazine, leading him to pursue an industrial design degree at SCAD. He continues to view his SCAD experience as foundational to his business development.

“At SCAD I had an influential professor named Jon Kolko. I told him I was trying to get into athletic apparel, and he encouraged me to take an intro class centered on human and computer interaction. My team’s project was a music startup that included a music player where a listener would interact with their device. I came out knowing how to build out a concept and create a user journey, which became two of the keys to the creation of Deepr.”

As a music-obsessed youth, Webster scoured the credits in CD booklets to see artist and producer credits, building an associative database in his mind of music he figured he’d dig based on its creators: “That was my process of discovering new music, and learning what I liked.” Deepr, then, is a smarter, more attuned way of discovering music than the often-homogenous algorithmic approach of other apps. “The spirit of discovery birthed our company,” Webster says. “With the Deepr App, we’ve eliminated those pain points where you’d have to use Google or Wikipedia to learn more about an artist, album, or song.”

An interview with Webster can encompass recommending new female artists like Flo Milli and Arlo Parks, or how the samples of 1970s Motown mack Willie Hutch run through the Grammy-winning anthems of Three6Mafia. It’s all love, Webster explains: “Deepr is for all music. You’ll find country, pop, rock, hip-hop. Our mission includes making sure creators get the respect and due that they deserve.”

“In a time when music listeners have no shortage of options for accessing content, Deepr is offering a substantially more thoughtful option,” says Crowell.

In late 2020, Deepr was backed by Google For Startups new Black Founders Fund. Now with the support of SCADpro Fund, financial investment is paired with developmental consultancy.

“Getting SCADpro behind us is important not only from the significant funding, but from the business acumen that Ray and SCADpro executive director Josh Lind bring to the table,” says Webster, who served as mentor at StartUp 2020 and 2021, and SCAD FutureProof and Diversity in Design 2020.

“I’m grateful to SCADpro Fund for having made this investment in us, and to Ray and Josh for connecting us with all the other incredible entrepreneurs in the SCADpro family.”

Banner photo: Deepr founders Austin Webster (left) and Darrell Thompson.

Written by Peter Relic.