Led by Tivoli Ventures and Malta Venture Capital, with a $1M Malta Enterprise grant and a distribution partnership with Telemach across the Balkans
NEW YORK CITY, NY, UNITED STATES, October 1, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Notey (Techstars 2023) has closed a $3M seed round led by Tivoli Ventures and co-led by Malta Venture Capital. The round includes a $1M non-dilutive development grant from Malta Enterprise. Notey is also announcing a distribution partnership with Telemach, one of Southeast Europe’s largest telecom operators, bringing the platform to households across the Balkans. The funding will support deeper platform engagement, new instruments and partnerships, a growing European operation, and hiring on both sides of the Atlantic as the company turns music practice into play.
Momentum Behind the Round
The seed round caps a strong stretch for Notey, the music education, gaming and practice platform. The platform has grown to more than 100,000 consumer users and has been active in 60 schools across four school districts. As Notey scales, the focus is shifting toward lasting engagement and making the platform a fixture of everyday practice.
Europe Next: Expansion Through Notey’s Maltese Subsidiary
Notey’s path to Malta began with the 2025 cohort of SuperCharger Ventures, which helped open the door to Malta Venture Capital’s investment and the Malta Enterprise grant. Its Maltese subsidiary, wholly owned by Notey Inc., becomes the base for product and engineering capacity, school and conservatory partnerships, and distribution across EU markets. Malta gives Notey an English-speaking, EU-based home with a deep bench of gaming, software and creative-technology talent.
Product and Partnerships on the Horizon
Notey is launching a new partnership with EdMusica, extending its reach into music education with a particular focus on Latin America, and is partnering with symphony orchestras such as the Slovenian Philharmonic to deepen young people’s connection to music.
In the Balkans, Notey is partnering with Telemach, the United Group operator serving households in Slovenia, Croatia and the wider region, which becomes a new sales channel putting the platform in front of families through a provider they already rely on.
Notey’s AI-native WorldBuilder is preparing for public launch, letting users create their own game worlds and music-learning experiences with generative AI. Piano, voice and recorder experiences are targeted for release by Q1 2027. Notey is hiring across engineering, product and design, content and curriculum, and school partnerships, in Malta and the United States.
The People Building It
Dr. Mak Grgić, CEO and Co-Founder, is a Grammy-nominated classical guitarist who performs internationally, served as Assistant Professor of Guitar at the University of South Carolina School of Music, and founded the Virtual Guitar Orchestra, honored by the Library of Congress. Adithya Bellathur, CTO and Co-Founder, is a machine learning engineer who came to Notey from Bloomberg and earlier Amazon, and leads engineering and the development of WorldBuilder. Yishai Pinchover, Chief Strategy Officer, co-founded CodeMonkey, the game-based coding platform acquired by TAL Education Group in 2018.
“We are competing with everything else on a kid’s screen, and attention is measured in seconds,” said Dr. Mak Grgić. “Learning an instrument is hard; playing a game is easy and fun. People quit because they lose interest in their instrument too quickly, so we dreamt up a world where games are built to support real instrument practice. Notey is an entertainment-first learning solution, where practice becomes play.”
“At Tivoli Ventures, we back founders who aren’t just building products, but defining new categories. Notey’s team has demonstrated exceptional clarity of vision and execution from day one. We’re thrilled to lead this seed round and partner with them as they push the boundaries of what’s possible,” said Andraž Grahek, General Partner, Tivoli Ventures Fund.
About Notey
Notey turns music practice into play, pairing game design with an adaptive curriculum so students build real skill while teachers keep visibility into practice between lessons. A Techstars 2023 company and InnoVision Award recipient, Notey has operations in New York City, Columbia, South Carolina, and Valletta, Malta.
About Tivoli Ventures
Tivoli Ventures is the venture fund of Tivoli Partners, an alternative investment fund manager based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, backing founders across the region and beyond.
About Malta Venture Capital
Malta Venture Capital (MVC) is an early-stage venture fund based in Malta, investing at pre-seed, seed and seed-plus stages across technology-driven sectors.
Media and Partnership Contact
Interviews and partnership inquiries: marketing@notey.co. Learn more at https://notey.co/.
Mak Grgić
Notey Inc.
email us here
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability
for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this
article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
Media gallery
