Epidemic Sound raises $20M at a $370M valuation for its soundtrack music discovery and licensing platform –
Summary
On the musician side, however, this is not the place to find a Taylor Swift track (not yet, at least): it’s a lot of mostly anonymous names who are professional jobbing musicians who are either doing this for supplementary income until they do hit the big time, or as an end in itself, with the biggest creators making “tens of thousands of dollars per month” on Epidemic, said Oscar Hoglund, Epidemic’s co-founder and CEO. Investors in this round include Korean firm DS Asset Management and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB), a Swedish financial group that is providing debt financing. ) DS Asset Management’s investment is strategic here: Epidemic plans to use the funding to move into Asia specifically by setting up shop in Korea, which Hoglund (who co-founded the startup with Peer Åström, David Stenmarck, Hjalmar Winbladh and Jan Zachrisson) notes is something of a lynchpin for video creation in the region, fuelled by the huge popularity for K-Pop and other trends. Music is consumed and played there, but licensing to creators there means it will travel elsewhere in the region, too.” The “music wars” that marked the growth of digital music — where tracks were used, shared and downloaded across various platforms with little thought or ability of paying royalties or licensing fees — are becoming increasingly rare, with a number of technologies and businesses (such as another Swedish entity, Kobalt) emerging that have been built to help track usage and to collect money for that, and platforms themselves increasingly reluctant to face labels and other rights holders both in the court of law, and the court of public opinion. Those who are in need of a particular kind of music for their soundtracks go to Epidemic’s search engine and select what they want to use by genre, mood, energy level and beats per minute (for faster or slower-paced tunes).