SoundCloud has just raised around $50 million in funding, valuing the company at $200 million. Its great to see music startups gaining a lot more VC money and SoundCloud is an amazing product.
SoundCloud is aiming to do what YouTube did in video, but for audio, and I think they have already achieved this!
Hip hop legends Public Enemy have been trying to raise $250,000 through fan funded platform SellaBand, but it seems as though that amount was unrealistic! Now Public Enemy is only after $75,000 for their new album.
“We have learned that the fan funding model is still not fully developed and, as a result, a $250,000 fund raising effort, while possible, will take too long to accomplish,” explains a new post on their SellaBand page. “We now believe that a $75,000 fund raising target will fulfill the needs for a new recording project and is much more appropriate for the strength of the existing SellaBand model and the current economic climate.”
They have removed sales and marketing expenses from the budget, which I find a little strange. Public Enemy are now 74% on their way to reach the $75,000 they require. Services like SellaBand seem to be getting a huge amount of hype in the last year or so, but no one has come up with actual results. Some of these new music revenues models seem to be just all talk!
Not to be outdone by streaming competitors Spotify, who are rumoured to have gained a new funding partner (and consultant) in the form of Napster/Facebook founder Sean Parker, MOG have announced second round funding of $10,000,000 dollars, which they plan to use to take the platform into Europe, as well as funding Stateside expansion. As things stand, the two competitors are entrenching in their home territories, but the date of their confrontation on one side of the Atlantic must be drawing closer, even though no dates have been mentioned by either team. MOG’s monthly subscription is less than half the price of Spotify’s, but Spotify has major label backing, plus a vocal and passionate fanbase. Pandora are keeping their heads down, and quietly getting on with dominating the internet-radio and car dashboard scene, but the clash between these two will likely define the major player in on-demand streaming. The future of this type of music consumption is far from gilt-edged, however, as Spotify are still struggling to up their paid (£9.99 a month) subscription rates to supplement their ad-funded service, while MOG are operating at about a 17% conversion rate from their free trial to a $5 a month subscription. Whether either of these approaches will be successful enough to fund them in the long term remains to be seen, but given the high level of uptake, there is certainly a market for on-demand. Who gets to service it is currently being decided.
Despite an economic meltdown that has added to venture capitalists’ already wary view of the music industry, fan-to-artist funding enabler Slicethepie has attracted another $1.4 million. The money will be used to broaden marketing efforts, as well as, support some of the 20 artists already funded by the site.
There has been a lot of talk recently about music startups. iLike is on the table and looking for a buyers, as is Imeem. A couple months ago Tunecore received more funding and now it is rumoured that Band Metrics has received angel funding.
Funding was led by Allen Graber, who is a technology investor and entrepreneur. Band Metrics was a Techcrunch 50 2008 semi-finalise, and this is a great step forward for their company. Band Metrics provides a first-of-its-kind semantic web application for the music industry that collects, analyzes and displays artist’s dynamic popularity. The company’s music intelligence and analytics are achieved through patent pending technology which assists artists in understanding large amounts of data relative to their music, fans and shows, while also helping them manage their digital identity.
