Rapchat, a music-making app and discovery platform for hip hop artists, has closed a $2.3m funding round led by venture capital firm Adjacent and Sony Music Entertainment.
The company’s latest funding round follows its original $1.7m seed funding secured in 2018, reportsTechCrunch, and brings the startup’s total funding to date to $4m.
In addition to Adjacent and Sony Music Entertainment, the company’s investors include London Venture Partners, M25, TechNexus, Base Ventures, 500 Startups
US-based Rapchat, which offers a catalog of over 100,000 beats, lets its users record vocals and then use editing tools like effects and mastering.
The company says that over 250,000 original tracks are created on its platform every month and that these songs can then be shared within the Rapchat community, privately between artists, or publicly on social platforms.
Founded in 2015 by Seth Miller, Rapchat reports to have 7 million registered users who it says have generated over 600m plays.
The startup also says that it has 500,000 active music creators each month and that users spend an average of 35 min daily in-app.
Rapchat says that it plans to use the new capital to invest in key hires across engineering, product, and marketing.
The platform also plans to add distribution features to allow its users to distribute their music to music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music
Rapchat also intends to use the funding to increase the prize pools for Rapchat’s popular competition series Challenges, in addition to bringing established artists, producers, and industry executives on board to help mentor users.
“Rapchat has created a music studio that fits into your pocket.”
Nico Wittenborn, Adjacent
Nico Wittenborn, lead Investor at venture capital firm Adjacent, added: “Rapchat has created a music studio that fits into your pocket.
“It decreases the friction of creativity by allowing anyone, anywhere in the world to record and publish music straight from their phones.
“This mobile-enabled democratization of technology is what Adjacent is all about, and I am super excited to support the team in building out this next-level music platform.”
“Helping users make music has always been our priority, but in today’s noisy content landscape, Rapchat will be committed to taking that experience to the next level.”
Seth Miller, Rapchat
Seth Miller, CEO of Rapchat, said: “Helping users make music has always been our priority, but in today’s noisy content landscape, Rapchat will be committed to taking that experience to the next level.
“We’re going to share our spotlight with our brightest users and help them get discovered. If you’re taking hip-hop and music seriously, Rapchat is the place for you.”Music Business Worldwide
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