ABBA legend Björn Ulvaeus, who participated in Audoo’s $6.9 million Series A funding round. Photo Credit: Frankie Fouganthin
London-based music-tech startup Audoo has raised over $6.9 million (£5.2 million) in a Series A funding round.
The two-year-old company announced its multimillion-dollar investment this morning, in a formal release that was shared with Digital Music News. ABBA cofounder and CISAC President Björn Ulvaeus participated in the roughly 10-week-long funding round, along with existing investors including Tileyard London. Audoo plans to put the capital “towards ensuring artists receive revenue that is rightfully theirs,” with an emphasis on expanding the reach and adoption of its audio meter.
The standalone tool plugs directly into public businesses’ electrical outlets and utilizes a “proprietary digital finger printing technology” to identify and take note of the tracks that’re played. This information – which, Audoo emphasizes, the plug-in tool acquires without recording or transmitting audio of any kind – is then matched against a more than 70 million-track library “to report the exact version of the song broadcasted.”
On the rollout front, the entity emphasized that it’s coordinating with performance rights organizations (PROs) “around the world” to make the technology’s adoption mandatory for public establishments that intend to play protected audio. Besides accurately pinpointing tracks for royalty purposes, the tool will enable labels, managers, and even artists to “refine their strategy” and more effectively plan tours and marketing initiatives, per Audoo.
Addressing his company’s funding round – as well as his broader vision for the plug-in technology – Audoo founder and CEO Ryan Edwards said: “It doesn’t matter who you are – from Sir Elton John to the local singer-songwriter – we will deliver accurate data to ensure artists are paid fairly. The mission is everything to us.
“If our technology is in place in all UK licensed premises, it will log around 80 million plays every 12 hours. We’ll know – with certainty and in detail – exactly what people are listening to. We will collect and report the biggest set of public performance music data ever created.”
Björn Ulvaeus, who became CISAC’s president in May of this year, struck a decidedly optimistic tone when addressing the potential of Audoo, stating in part: “Audoo is a solution I believe will change the music industry forever and that’s why I have put my money where my mouth is.”
In one of the many testaments to tech’s continually growing role in music, Summit Partners-backed production platform Output raised $45 million via a Series A round last month. Additionally, music licensing and distribution platform Songtradr announced a $30 million Series C funding round in August.
Musicians actually trying to fix the music business. WOW, what a concept! It’s only been twenty years since Napster and the new ‘if you don’t give us your music for free we will just go steal it anyway’ business model will be hard to compete with …