Sony Music joins $7.5m funding round for royalty-free music startup Slip.stream

Royalty-free music startup Slip.stream has secured $7.5 million of Series A financing from investors including Sony Music Entertainment, Third Prime, and Lightshed Ventures.

Slip.stream says it will work with Sony Music to explore new “premium music opportunities” for Sony Music artists within the Slip.stream platform.

Slip.stream, described as a “creator safe music platform” was launched by entrepreneurs by David Carson (Fuse, Heavy.com, New Stand founder), Dan Demole (Jingle Punks founder) and Jesse Korwin (Jingle Punks CMO).

The platform offers a copyright strike safe library of over 50,000 tracks and 40,000 sound effects, filled with what it says is “real music from real artists”.

In addition to the funding raise, Slip.stream has added Anthony Pisano from Gameover Talent and Faze Blaze from Faze Clan to its advisory board.

Blaze and Pisano join a board which already counts key industry figures including T-Pain among its members.

Slip.stream says that the new capital accelerates its mission to be “the go-to platform for creators and streamers who need music for their content”.

The latest investment round adds to the startup’s previous seed funding round of $3.25 million in 2021, bringing its total raised to $10.75 million.

With the new funding, Slip.stream says it will drive the development of its platform, grow its team, add new content partnerships, and bolster its catalog by opening their platform to more musicians.

Slip.stream claims to have attracted over 100,000 creators to its platform. The company claims further that this represents “an audience reach of over 500 million, with the live-streaming and gaming community representing a significant portion of this audience”.

In the coming months, the company plans to launch a new service for musicians to make their music available to Slip.stream’s creator user-base. The service is currently in beta and available via invite-only on Slip.stream’s website.

Slip.stream recently added three digital media veterans to its team. Chris McDonald, formerly of United Masters and Epidemic Sounds, will lead business development as SVP.

Shan Huang, most recently at Casper, will oversee Slip.stream’s growth marketing efforts and Michael Feldman, manager of Fortnite superstar Clix, will steer the company’s talent and influencer relationships.

Elsewhere, music industry veteran Anthony Martini exited his role as CEO of Royalty Exchange in December and joined Slip.stream as Chief Music Officer and Partner.

Slip.stream also named Grammy-award winning artist and producer T-Pain as an advisor.

“We support Slip.stream’s vision of building mutually beneficial ways for recording artists and the creator community to work together that deliver new recurring revenue streams and expanded reach for artists.”

Dennis Kooker, Sony Music Entertainment 

Dennis Kooker, President, Global Digital Business, Sony Music Entertainment said: “We support Slip.stream’s vision of building mutually beneficial ways for recording artists and the creator community to work together that deliver new recurring revenue streams and expanded reach for artists.

“Their leadership team has experience in music, and understanding and respect for the needs of artists in this developing space. We look forward to partnering with them to develop innovative opportunities for great music to flourish in more use cases.”

“We are positioning ourselves at the nexus of music, gaming, and the streaming creator communities that are leading culture.”

Jesse Korwin, Slip.stream

Slip.stream CMO, Jesse Korwin, added: “We are positioning ourselves at the nexus of music, gaming, and the streaming creator communities that are leading culture.

“A big part of our mission is to provide high quality music for these creators to integrate safely into their content, while supporting the work of artists.”

“We’ve long believed that the music industry was ready to explore innovative models addressing creators and streamers’ need for quality music in their content.”

Dan Demole, Slip.stream

Dan Demole, Co-CEO of Slip.stream, added: “We’ve long believed that the music industry was ready to explore innovative models addressing creators and streamers’ need for quality music in their content.

“This funding round along with our new partners is validation of this belief. It’s a win and a step in the right direction for creators and musicians everywhere.”

“This funding will allow us to explore new partnerships and add more exclusive music content to further provide a great experience to our users.”

Slip.stream

David Carson, Slip.stream Co-CEO said: “Artists, labels, and brands are opening up to compelling new models that harness the power of the creator universe and we’ve been fortunate thus far to work with pioneers in the space like T-Pain and Riot.

“This funding will allow us to explore new partnerships and add more exclusive music content to further provide a great experience to our users.”Music Business Worldwide