[NEWS] Epidemic Sound raises $20M at a $370M valuation for its soundtrack music discovery and licensing platform – Loganspace

The upward push of streamed video has viewed the market for licensing streamed song yell in the last few years, with not most effective patrons the exercise of video as a medium to hear to tracks however video creators moreover broadly the exercise of song as half of their agree with productions. This day, a startup that has built a platform to capitalise on the latter of those two makes exercise of is expanding its industry.

Epidemic Sound, a startup out of Sweden that lets video producers — creators for social media platforms, advertising of us, film producers and extra — see for song after which license it to exercise as soundtracks on their videos, has raised $20 million in funding at what we understand is a $370 million valuation.

Its song licensing customers consist of loads of “household” names, from YouTubers and creators on Instagram, TikTok and the relaxation, to critical businesses and classy premium streaming video locations love Netflix.

On the musician aspect, however, that isn’t the distance to safe a Taylor Swift note (not but, at the least): it’s loads of mostly nameless names who’re professional jobbing musicians who’re both doing this for supplementary income till they bring out hit the large time, or as an terminate in itself, with the greatest creators making “tens of hundreds of bucks month-to-month” on Epidemic, acknowledged Oscar Hoglund, Epidemic’s co-founder and CEO.

(Epidemic itself has been growing revenues 100% year-over-year, Hoglund educated me.)

Traders on this round consist of Korean firm DS Asset Management and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB), a Swedish monetary physique of workers that is providing debt financing. Varied investors in Epidemic consist of Creandum, EQT Mid-Market and Atwater Capital. (Creandum, the Swedish VC firm thatcurrently closed a brand new fund, is a considerable investor in the Swedish song tech world, with itsportfoliomoreover at the side of Spotify, Soundtrack Your Designate, which ancient to be known as Spotify for Change, and headphone maker Jays.)

DS Asset Management’s funding is strategic here: Epidemic plans to exercise the funding to plod into Asia particularly by organising shop in Korea, which Hoglund notes is one thing of a lynchpin for video introduction in the distance, fuelled by the large recognition for K-Pop and completely different traits.

“South Korea is the cultural hotspot staunch now for the distance,” he acknowledged in an interview. “It’s a fetch exporter for deliver material. Track is consumed and carried in the market, however licensing to creators there plot this could perchance presumably well fair skedaddle in completely different locations in the distance, too.”

The “song wars” that marked the growth of digital song — the put aside tracks were ancient, shared and downloaded across completely different platforms with runt opinion or capacity of paying royalties or licensing costs — are changing into extra and extra rare, with a total lot of technologies and businesses (reminiscent of every other Swedish entity, Kobalt) rising which agree with been built to support note usage and to to find money for that, and platforms themselves extra and extra reluctant to face labels and completely different rights holders both in thecourt of legislation, and thecourt of public notion.

Epidemic has arisen as in actual fact one of many benefactors of that wave by making it much less difficult for creators to safe the true deliver material that they need. These that are wanting a particular roughly song for his or her soundtracks plod to Epidemic’s search engine and clutch what they’re making an strive to exercise by model, mood, energy stage and beats per minute (for quicker or slower-paced tunes). You’d hear to every item after which like a flash clutch what you are making an strive to exercise and get it. These that exercise the platform in most cases will in flip salvage extra staunch results attuned to their customary tastes, not not like what number of song-streaming platforms be taught your tastes.

But this isn’t an enormous, scale-wins-all market, Hoglund aspects out. Whereas any and all creators are welcome to hitch and exercise the song (payments for them are in two tiers, searching on whether or not you are acreatoror aprofessional, and how worthy you circulation the song) — and there are now hundreds and hundreds of them the exercise of Epidemic — on the deliver material aspect, Epidemic deliberately curates the aggregate of song and quantity of tracks so that the quality remains constant, and its algorithm doesn’t salvage too overwhelmed and stays staunch in what it provides in search results.

The song creatives, meanwhile, bag an upfront payment for every note Epidemic buys, with payment varying searching on the note. Subsequent to that, it splits the revenue from song streaming platforms the put aside the song could presumably perchance later alongside its exercise in the video tracks (Spotify, Apple, Deezer, etc.) 50/50 with musicians.

“The plot we glimpse it and our mission is that we are purchasing for accomplish success all song, both for those that kind it and agree with a necessity for it,” acknowledged Hoglund. “We’re not a market in the sense that YouTube is one, the put aside anybody can upload and exercise one thing. We’re extra love Netflix, the put aside now we agree with a extra curated and selective plot.” This signifies that the quantity of artists on Epidemic numbers in the hundreds, he acknowledged, “not the tons of of hundreds.”

The company has loads of competition in the market, from the likes of completely different companies that agree with made a industry out of providing soundtrack song, reminiscent of Muzak, thru to platforms providing song themselves (shall we embrace YouTube), and doubtlessly song streaming platforms that it’s possible you’ll presumably well imagine would are making an strive to kind a plod into an situation love this as every other plot to support song makers monetise their work. I requested about whether or not Epidemic had ever been approached by Spotify, shall we embrace, Hoglund educated me with a brief snicker that he would decline to answer to however that this wasn’t one thing that became as soon as being pursued or even in point of fact appropriate by Epidemic.

One of many explanations is because of, by being platform-agnostic, it has the option of working with each person with no strings connected. He acknowledged that currently Epidemic’s song is conducted for $250 million hours/month on YouTube on moderate, making it the most well-hottest platform, with numbers two and three Instagram (owned by Fb) and Fb itself, with a growing quantity of traction moreover now on TikTok. Whereas premium streaming customers could perchance be much less prolific customers of Epidemic, they herald worthy bigger revenues per consumer in most cases.