Nashville-based music startup Soundstripe has raised a further $9 million in funding from a group of investors led by private equity firm Topmark Partners and existing investors including Craft Ventures.
The latest funding round was announced just a day after Soundstripe, which helps creators dodge copyright claims with royalty-free music, unveiled its first mobile app for creators to access royalty-free music on the go.
The Series B fundraising announced today comes two years after the startup raised $2 million from Craft Ventures, a company led by David Sacks, founding COO of PayPal and co-founder/former CEO of Yammer.
Soundstripe raised $4 million in its Series A fundraising prior to the deal with Craft.
“The team at Soundstripe has built an impressive business that is highly differentiated in the royalty-free content industry, and we are truly honored to partner with them.”
Travis Milks, Topmark
Alongside Craft and Topmark, the latest (Series B) round saw participation from Overline Ventures and Escalate Partners.
Vocap Partners, which participated in Soundstripe’s Series A round, also joined the latest capital raise.
Speaking about the investment, Topmark Managing Partner Travis Milks, said: “The team at Soundstripe has built an impressive business that is highly differentiated in the royalty-free content industry, and we are truly honored to partner with them.”
Established in 1999, Tampa, Florida-based Topmark has invested over $75 million in over 45 companies including commercial advertising and corporate video, film and TV producer Vū Technologies, according to its website.
For Soundstripe, the investment from Topmark and other investors will help the startup expand its offerings, allowing creators, filmmakers and brands to access nearly 200,000 “use anywhere” digital content assets in their videos, ads, and other creative projects.
“The explosive growth of the creator economy has catapulted Soundstripe forward, with our mission to ‘Keep Creators Creating’ resonating strongly with those who need fast, hassle-free music, sound effects, and video clips for their projects,” Soundstripe co-CEO Travis Terrell said.
Terrell said his startup “will now use this Series B financing to invest heavily in our enterprise business, which has already proven to be a huge area of growth for our company while remaining ripe with opportunity”.
Founded in 2016, Soundstripe provides unlimited, royalty-free music, stock video, and sound effects that can be used in videos, podcasts, and other media projects. Through its subscription model, content creators pay a fee for the use of all of the media in Soundtripe’s catalog.
“The explosive growth of the creator economy has catapulted Soundstripe forward, with our mission to ‘Keep Creators Creating’ resonating strongly with those who need fast, hassle-free music, sound effects, and video clips for their projects.”
Travis Terrell, Soundstripe
To date, the startup has issued more than 10 million licenses for tens of thousands of customers in more than 140 countries, it said.
“The combination of the company’s content catalog, distribution platform and quickly expanding sales and marketing capabilities creates a strong platform for continued rapid growth in a very dynamic industry,” Topmark’s Milks said.
On Monday (August 29), Soundstripe launched its first-ever mobile app that allows creators to get the tools and features that they need even when they are away from their desktops.
The app features curated and featured playlists, seamless song playback, waveform control, search and filters, similar song suggestions, the option to save favorites, edit custom playlists, download songs straight to devices and share songs and playlists.
Soundstripe’s partners include Microsoft, Amazon, sports media company The Players’ Tribune, Spotify, Samsung and sportswear brand Puma.
The startup has also teamed up with Adobe Premiere, Frame.io and Twitch to integrate its catalog of music and sound FX directly to these platforms. For Twitch users with Soundstripe accounts, they can use Soundstripe-licensed tracks as backgrounds for their livestreams.
The appeal of Soundstripe as a royalty-free music provider comes as music rights owners beef up their fight against the illegal use of their copyrighted material, and as the emergence of different media platforms had led to a surge in the number of media creators globally.
This catapulted six-year old Soundstripe to becoming one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. The company was recently named to the Top 100 of the 2022 Inc. Regionals: Southeast list and the Top 2,000 of the 2022 Inc. 5000 list of fast-growing firms.
It was also bagged the Game-Changing Startup award in the Entertainment, Sports, and Media category at The Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s 2019 NEXT Awards, and was named one of the city’s Top 10 startup cultures by Powderkeg.Music Business Worldwide
