Rapchat has raised $2.3 million in a new funding round. Photo Credit: Markus Winkler
Rap-discovery platform Rapchat has generated $2.3 million in a new funding round, upping its total raised capital to $4 million.
The Columbus-headquartered music-making app detailed the multimillion-dollar raise – led by venture firm Adjacent – via a formal release. Per this announcement message, the six-year-old Rapchat, which currently “hosts a 10-member distributed team,” intends to use “the new capital to invest in key hires across engineering, product, and marketing.”
Rapchat’s catalog boasts “over 100,000 beats, recording vocals,” and other effects, and north of “250,000 original tracks are created on the platform every month,” according to the concise release. Notably, Rapchat also plans “to deploy self-distribution features” moving forward, allowing “users to publish their songs onto popular streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.”
Addressing his company’s latest funding round in a statement, Rapchat CEO Seth Miller 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,” concluded Miller, whose company “just recently launched the core studio product.”
Nico Wittenborn, a lead investor at 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.”
Worth noting is that Rapchat’s successful raise arrives as both fan and professional interest in hip-hop music appears stronger than ever. In terms of the former, hip-hop acts occupied all 10 spots on YouTube’s list of the most-viewed artists in the U.S. during 2020, and hip-hop was the most-viewed genre on the Google-owned video-sharing platform between October and December of 2020.
And on the latter front, SoundCloud late last month exclusively expanded its The Lookout playlist, which showcases emerging hip-hop acts, into a SiriusXM program. New episodes of the playlist-inspired program air every Thursday evening. Plus, The Blackstone Group has officially agreed to purchase Hasbro’s eOne Music – including the legendary Death Row Records – for $385 million.
Both companies’ boards have approved the terms of this nearly $400 million transaction, which is expected to officially close sometime in 2021’s second or third quarter.