Roxi, a music streaming service for television, has attracted £7 million ($8.7m) in new funding.
The investment comes as Roxi, based in the UK, prepares to launch the service in the US, The Daily Mail reported Saturday (April 15).
According to The Daily Mail, The startup raised the funds from existing investor comedian Alexander Armstrong, as well as U2 guitarist Adam Clayton and the band’s ex-manager Paul McGuinness.
The deal raises Armstrong’s stake in Roxi by an undisclosed amount. Armstrong hosts the BBC One quiz game Pointless and a morning show on Classic FM.
Roxi has raised £32 million to date, according to the Daily Mail’s report. The company attracted investment from music and TV executive Simon Cowell in December.
Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams are also among the firm’s backers. The Daily Mail said Roxi refused to confirm whether Minogue and Williams took part in the latest funding round.
The Guardian reported in December that Roxi also counts the three majors, Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music, among its investors.
The company, founded in 2014, offers 90 million music videos and 400,000 karaoke tracks. Roxi has distribution deals with Sky for Sky Q, Amazon for Fire TV and Google for Android TV, according to the company’s LinkedIn page.
Roxi’s TV music app is compatible with Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Toshiba, TCL, HiSense and Shield Smart TV with Samsung TV and others.
“Roxi is changing the way friends and family enjoy music together at home. The next phase is a global rollout into the homes of millions of consumers worldwide,” CEO Rob Lewis was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
The report said Roxi will use the proceeds from the latest fundraising to expand into the US this year.
Lewis, in December, said: “We have had approaches from two major US-based media/tech companies, who see the opportunity to make Roxi available to their customers and subscribers, particularly in the USA.”
“The right partnership with a major player in the sector can allow Roxi to fast-forward its adoption, particularly in the US market, by several years,” Lewis was quoted by The Guardian as saying.
Lewis is bullish on the US market, noting that it is the world’s largest smart TV market and the largest music market by revenue.
“The decision of how we partner with these partners and which partners – which is likely to involve equity participation as well – is critical to the rapid growth of the business,” Lewis added.
The investor appeal of Roxi comes amid the growing consumption of digital music globally.
On-demand music audio streams across the world crossed the one-trillion mark in the first quarter of 2023, with music listeners spending roughly 960,000 years in combined time streaming music so far this year, according to Luminate’s latest report.
For Roxi, the company could benefit from its plan to launch in the US as music streaming continues to gain momentum in the market.
Recent data from the Digital Media Association (DiMA, which represents services including Spotify and Amazon Music), estimates that music streaming contributed $14.32 billion to the US GDP in 2021.
Music Business Worldwide