September 23, 2024

Skylight Webzine

Online since 2000

But Wait! Music Financing Is Suddenly Roaring Back…


The major labels may have killed the licensed startup, but there’s still plenty of other music-related opportunity to be had. Which might explain a spate of July mega-rounds from the likes of the Echo Nest, Sonos, Ticketfly, and Roku, all of which has happened in the past two weeks. Indeed, the Roku and Ticketfly rounds happened over the past few days, suddenly tilting the year-over-year balance.  Which means the 2011 comparison now looks like this.

2012, YTD: $339mm
2011, same point: $405mm
Difference: – 17%

Month-by-month comparison: http://goo.gl/DWlPt

This could become very bubble-like, very soon.  Assuming that VEVO’s $100 million and Spotify’s $200 million rumored rounds come to fruition, the story on 2012 then becomes completely different.  Here, we plotted VEVO in August, and Spotify in September, while assuming no other funding activity during those periods.

http://goo.gl/DWlPt

Shifting to the present, here’s the updated tally of all 2012 rounds – at least the ones we’ve been able to confirm with the companies themselves.
(also, please note that in our earlier coverage, we neglected to include Popdust’s $4.5 million round in June).

Soundcloud: $50,000,000
Next Big Sound: $6,400,000
Moontoast: $6,000,000
Gobbler: $1,750,000
Murfie: $1,400,000
TastemakerX: $1,200,000
exfm: $1,500,000
Backplane: $4,500,000
Fanzy: $500,000
Songkick: $10,000,000
Music Xray: $500,000
Gumroad: $7,000,000
Mobile Backstage: $1,300,000
Senzari: $1,000,000
88tc88: $1,000,000
Popdust: $4,500,000
Roqbot: $1,200,000
MyMusic: $1,000,000
Soundrop: $3,000,000
Sonos: $135,000,000
The Echonest: $17,500,000
Sonic Notify: $4,250,000
Ticketfly: $22,000,000
WhoSay: $12,000,000
Roku: $45,000,000

Total: $339,500,000

Source: Digital Music