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Business News Digital
Epidemic Sound raises new finance to fund Asian expansion
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 2 July 2019
Innovative music library Epidemic Sound has raised $20 million in new funding which, according to TechCrunch, values the business at $370 million.
Epidemic Sound has done a very good job of identifying gaps in the market not filled by traditional record companies and music libraries, and then setting about filling those gaps. Sometimes resulting in traditional players in the business getting pissed off, even though that means they are annoyed about a gap filler filling gaps they failed to fill. Or even see.
The core Epidemic Sound business is about providing background music to grassroots video makers who can’t deal with the total mind-fuck that is music licensing. Even production music licencing which – although designed to be simpler – traditionally only cut out the labels, and retained the confusing slicing of song rights and, often, the kind of territorial collective licensing that makes no fucking sense at all in the internet age.
By reading the comments below videos using its music, Epidemic Sound then decided to ignore the mantra that says production music is always inferior and no one in their right mind would ever want to listen to it in isolation, and pumped some of its catalogue into Spotify. Where it found a bunch of insanely popular chill out and relaxation playlists in desperate need of new tracks, because few labels commercially release that sort of music.
Three gaps in the market to fill and Epidemic Sound filled each of them. Which is presumably why the company gets to brag about revenues doubling in the past year. So why, if revenues are booming, raise another $20 million in equity and debt funding? World domination, of course! As its customer base grows beyond grassroots video makers, the company also wants to soundtrack more videos elsewhere in the world.
Asia’s currently the priority with a new base in South Korea set to launch later this year. Says CEO Oscar Hoglund: “Asia is home to some of the world’s most exciting and dynamic online content creators, musicians and businesses. We have witnessed strong growth in demand for Epidemic’s music platform across the Asian continent prior to even having a presence there, so this launch feels like a natural next step for Epidemic”.
