Session is the music credits startup founded by superstar Swedish songwriters Björn Ulvaeus, Max Martin and Niclas Molinder. The post Royalty-processing firm Salt buys music-credits startup Session appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Things are moving fast in South Korean tech company Kakao’s efforts to buy a stake in K-Pop firm SM Entertainment. The post Kakao wants to buy a bigger stake in K-Pop firm SM Entertainment appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Last year, we wrote about how music-tech firm Pacemaker – best known for its innovative DJ apps – was up for sale. The post Tuned Global hits the dancefloor with Pacemaker acquisition appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Say what you like about whether the music industry really needs its own ‘LinkedIn of the music biz’, but these companies are acquirable. The post Music credits firm Jaxsta buys music biz social network Vampr appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Utopia Music bought a lot of companies during its rise to prominence in 2021 and 2022, but a firm that it *didn’t* buy is now a headache. The post SourceAudio sues Utopia Music over alleged acquisition collapse appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Napster is buying Mint Songs, a startup that had raised $4.3m of funding to build its music NFTs marketplace. The post Napster’s first web3 acquisition is music NFTs startup Mint Songs appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

We wrote about tech firm Kakao buying a stake in Korean music company SM Entertainment earlier this week, but now it’s been joined by Hybe. The post Now Hybe moves to take a stake in K-Pop firm SM Entertainment appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

It’s been clear for some time that Hybe’s global ambitions stretch well beyond the K-Pop that built the company in South Korea. The post Hybe makes a move into hip-hop with Quality Control acquisition appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Music licensing firm Songtradr has long had an eye for an acquisition: Big Sync Music in 2019, CueSongs in 2020, Pretzel in 2021… The post Songtradr agrees acquisition deal for B2B music firm 7digital appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

It seems that Meta really will be completing its long-planned acquisition of virtual reality music-fitness startup Within. The post FTC accepts decision that Meta can acquire music startup Within appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Meta announced plans to buy VR startup Within – the company behind music-fitness service Supernatural – in late 2021. The post Meta wins latest stage in battle to buy music startup Within appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Beatport has been one of the more acquisitive music companies in recent years, and yesterday it announced its latest deal. The post Beatport buys a majority stake in electronic music brand IMS appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Having raised $11.7m of funding last September, web3 music firm Hume has now splashed some of that cash on an acquisition. The post web3 music firm Hume buys generative audio startup Blocktones appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Music tech firm Orfium’s CEO Rob Wells relished his mic-drop moment at NY:LON Connect 2023 yesterday. The post Orfium bolsters broadcasting tech with Soundmouse acquisition appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

One of the more acquisitive companies in the independent music space, Downtown Music Holdings, has swooped again. The post Downtown Music Holdings acquires Curve Royalty Systems appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

It’s more than a year since Meta announced that it was buying VR startup Within, but the deal has yet to close. The post Meta delays Within acquisition amid court battle with FTC appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The US Federal Trade Commission and Meta are heading to a courtroom in San Jose today The post FTC and Meta prepare for court battle over Within acquisition appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Every working day in December, we’re publishing a new article drawing together some of the big music industry stories. Today: acquisitions. The post 17 key music industry acquisition stories from 2022 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Independence is still being stressed, with Gates and fellow co-founder Michel Lambot retaining majority control of PIAS. The post Universal Music Group buys 49% stake in indie group PIAS appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Meta bought the developer of popular VR music game Beat Saber in 2019 without a hitch, and may have expected similar for Within. The post FTC plans to question Zuckerberg in case to block Within deal appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Audius’s take on ‘web3 music streaming’ has focused mainly on its decentralised nature and its plans for tokens. The post web3 DSP Audius buys online-concerts startup SoundStage·fm appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

After months of speculation about whether Kobalt was up for sale, who might buy it and for how much, finally some concrete news. The post Investment firm Francisco Partners buys controlling stake in Kobalt appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Spotify has snapped up Heardle, the Wordle-inspired music identification game that became popular earlier this year. The post Spotify buys music trivia game Heardle with discovery in mind appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Napster has been acquired again, this time by two companies from the web3 sector: Hivemind and Algorand. The post Napster gets bought again, this time with a web3 pivot in the works appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

SoundCloud has acquired Musiio, the Singapore-based startup that has developed a service offering AI-powered analysis and tagging of music catalogues. The post SoundCloud acquires AI music-tagging startup Musiio appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

UK competition watchdog the CMA has published its provisional decision on Sony Music’s acquisition of distributor and artist services company AWAL. The post CMA provisionally clears Sony Music’s acquisition of AWAL appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Sony Interactive Entertainment, has swooped to buy Bungie, the developer of the Destiny franchise, and the original creator of Halo. The post Games consolidation continues as Sony buys Bungie for $3.6bn appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

VRTCL is one of the companies that sprang up to help labels and artists make the most of TikTok and other social platforms, launching in 2019. The post Create Music Group buys influencer marketing agency VRTCL appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

US satellite-radio firm SiriusXM has made an interesting acquisition: ‘music for business’ company Cloud Cover Music. The post SiriusXM buys business-music service Cloud Cover Music appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Warner Music Group has revealed its latest strategic move in Africa: a majority stake in distributor Africori. The post WMG buys majority stake in African distributor Africori appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

In September 2019, Spotify bought SoundBetter, a website helping musicians to find collaborators including songwriters, studio musicians, producers and mixing/mastering engineers, as well as studios to record in. Two years later, it has sold the business back to its founders. “Together, Spotify and SoundBetter benefited from many synergies, but as SoundBetter continues to evolve, both parties […]

The Covid-19 pandemic isn’t over yet, but bigger fish in the worlds of live and streaming music are already circling the most promising startups in the livestreaming space. We have seen Live Nation take a majority stake in Veeps, and (see below) Dice acquiring Boiler Room. Now Deezer is making its second livestreaming investment in […]

The Music Fund is one of a cluster of startups promising to pay artists advances based on predicted streaming royalties, while leaving them full ownership of their rights. The post More fintech/music crossover as Hifi buys The Music Fund appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Spotify’s big podcasting moves get lots of attention in the music industry, but the company’s aggressive push into podcasts has had a bigger ripple effect. From Amazon Music buying production firm Wondery to iHeartMedia’s recent acquisition of ad-tech firm Triton Digital, lots of big players are making big moves at the moment to position themselves […]

In 2018, ticketing startup Seated made people, ahem, sit up and take notice when it was one of the winners at the Midemlab startups contest. We reported on its winning pitch at the time, with the company working directly with artists to sell tickets to their shows, and to remind fans when they were on sale – even automatically […]

On the rare news-day when we don’t have a Hipgnosis catalogue acquisition to report, it feels like there’s often news of the company raising more money for its next swathe of deals instead. On Friday, Hipgnosis announced that it had raised £75m (around $103m) through its latest sale of shares, with MBW reporting that Morgan Stanley Investment Management led […]

We wrote about Byte when it launched in January 2020: it was created by the co-founder of Vine as a new take on short-video apps. In July, it announced plans to add music to its app. We’ve also written about Clash Video, another short-video app, founded by a TikToker and launched in July 2020. Now the two are […]

Snapchat’s music ambitions just took another significant step forward, with parent company Snap seemingly having acquired startup Voisey, whose app is used to create and share original music videos. We say ‘seemingly’ because neither company has yet commented, but the news – broken by Business Insider then followed up by TechCrunch – isn’t in doubt. Voisey’s four co-founders resigned as directors last […]

We’ve written about ToneDen a few times in recent memory: for a profile of its social and streaming marketing tools in November 2019, for example, and then a story in June this year about its ‘StreamLinks’ feature offering smart links for livestreaming events. Now the startup has been acquired by a company very much rooted in the live events […]

When Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group for around $300m in 2019, the deal included Taylor Swift’s back catalogue of recordings – something that made Swift furious given her ongoing disputes with Braun. Nearly a year and a half on, Ithaca has sold those master rights to Swift’s first six albums on, in a […]

It’s not been smooth sailing for secondary ticketing firm Viagogo’s $4bn takeover of rival StubHub since it was announced in November 2019, thanks to regulatory investigations and Covid-19. Now Viagogo is proposing a solution that it hopes will fend off the regulators: selling StubHub’s business outside North America, while hanging on to the US and Canada […]

Amper Music has been one of the more prominent AI music startups since emerging in 2017 as one of the first startups to take part in the Techstars Music accelerator. It launched with a tool for people to make music with its AI to use in their own creative projects, and along the way has collaborated with artist […]

It’s open season for acquisitions of podcasting startups whose technology and/or shows seem appealing to a bigger fish. The latest example is Voxnest, a company that makes advertising tech for podcasting, and which is now being bought by iHeartMedia. Cue adspeak! “iHeartMedia, through Voxnest, will now be able to provide podcast advertisers with additional targetable inventory […]

As the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic grows in many countries, now’s a very difficult time to be involved in live music. However, it may also be seen as an opportunity by companies looking to make acquisitions in live. BMG, for example, is getting into live music for the first time, with an agreement […]

In April we reported on the shutdown of French startup Soundsgood. It had launched in 2015 as a way to curate playlists and manage them across multiple streaming services, before moving more towards B2B services for labels. “These B2B activities have eventually led to our recent acquisition,” announced Soundsgood as it closed down, but the company […]

This might just be a record for the shortest gap between a startup being first covered by Music Ally, and being acquired. We wrote about Trick 3D and its ‘AiR Show’ app a couple of weeks ago: it promised to beam artists into fans’ living rooms using augmented reality technology, for performances. It had a partnership with […]

Back in June 2018, Music Ally wrote about a startup called Scout·fm, which was launching a ‘voice-first podcast curation service’. It had an Alexa skill that would ask people questions to understand their interests, then provide a radio-style stream of podcast episodes. The next we heard of it was early this year, when Scout·fm joined a […]

We know that Hipgnosis Songs Fund likes buying publishing catalogues, and sometimes recordings rights too. But now it’s also buying publishing companies. Well, one publishing company this morning: Big Deal Music, which owns rights in songs that have been recorded by Shawn Mendes, One Direction and Panic at the Disco among other artists. This isn’t […]

Yesterday we reported on MelodyVR’s planned acquisition of streaming service Napster for $26.3m in cash and stock, and wondered why the company was describing it as a $70m deal. A separate announcement from Napster’s majority owner RealNetworks cleared that up: the deal also saw MelodyVR assuming “approximately $44m in payment obligations, primarily to various music industry entities”. The cash […]

Music-focused virtual reality startup MelodyVR has announced plans to merge with streaming service Napster. To be clear: MelodyVR is the buyer, although the Napster brand will live on. “Under the terms of the Merger Agreement, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company will be merged with and into Napster (with Napster being the surviving entity),” explained […]

We do try to choose our words carefully when writing about the world of politics, but it seems increasingly uncontroversial to suggest that the process around the potential sale of TikTok’s US operations… well, it stinks. First President Trump suggested that the US Treasury should get a piece of the transaction that’s been enforced by […]

Warner Music Group’s latest acquisition is an intriguing one: of Israeli company Imgn Media, which creates videos and memes designed to go viral on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. TechCrunch reported that WMG paid “just under $100m” for the company, which claims that its content generates more than 3bn views a month, with more than 40 million subscribers […]

Events have moved fast since Friday for TikTok’s business in the US, it’s fair to say. We’ll start with the latest news: confirmation from Microsoft that it’s in talks about an acquisition of TikTok in the US and certain other countries, with a mid-September deadline to reach an agreement with the app’s parent company ByteDance […]

We wrote about the Equality in Audio Pact earlier this month. Launched by podcast producer Broccoli Content, it was a list of five pledges that audio production companies could make, including paying interns; hiring LGBTQIA+, black people, people of colour and other minorities for projects that aren’t just related to their identity; releasing race pay gap data; […]

Livestreaming has never been more prominent than it is now as artists and venues try and plug that massive hole left by the cancellation of shows, tours, festivals and clubs. Now there’s some consolidation afoot in this area: a company called eResonate Media is buying another livestreaming startup called Livit Media. The companies have been working together since […]

Facebook has acquired Giphy, the popular library of animated GIFs, and plans to “further integrate” it into Instagram and other Facebook apps, while still making it available to non-Facebook apps too. “We’re looking forward to investing further in its technology and relationships with content and API partners. People will still be able to upload GIFs; […]

We first wrote about French startup Soundsgood back in 2015 when it launched after signing up a range of tastemakers to curate bespoke playlists across all the major DSPs of the time. Two years later, it was among the winners in the Midemlab contest for startups, triumphing in the marketing and data/analytics category. Over time, Soundsgood focused more on […]

On the very last day of 2019, Tencent Holdings (heading up a consortium of investors) signed an agreement to acquire 10% of Universal Music Group. Now, in a neat bit of quarterly timing, that deal went through on the very last day of the first quarter of 2020. As previously announced, the deal valued Universal Music Group […]

It’s not just music streaming services who are excited about podcasts and long-form audio more generally. The New York Times just acquired a startup called Audm, which runs a “subscription-based audio app that offers listeners the world’s best longform journalism, read aloud word-for-word by celebrated audiobook narrators”. It launched in 2016, and aggregates articles from the NYT but […]

A photo of a BTS stadium gig in Taiwan accompanies the latest announcement from Ticketmaster, signifying its ambitions in Asia. The company has acquired Taiwanese ticketing company Tixcraft, while also launching a Ticketmaster Singapore operation. “We have established two great bases with talented teams to support the bourgeoning live entertainment scene in Asia,” said Ticketmaster International […]

Whenever Apple buys a startup not big enough to ping any regulatory radars, it has a standard statement that it gives to journalists requesting comment on the acquisition: “Apple buys smaller companies from time to time, and we generally don’t discuss our purpose or plans.” Now, however, Apple – along with Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Google and […]

Downtown Music Holdings, the parent company of Downtown Music Publishing and Songtrust, is buying distributor and music/tech services company FUGA, for an undisclosed amount. The deal comes just 10 months after Downtown made a splash with the acquisition of AVL Digital Group, whose subsidiaries included CD Baby, AdRev, DashGo and Soundrop. AVL is the entity […]

Valence Media, the owner of Billboard, is buying the Nielsen Music “insights and product suite’ that it uses for its charts in the US.  The two companies were previously under the same roof between 1999 and 2009 when they were part of Dutch media group Verenigde Nederlandse Uitgeverijen (VNU). That was until VNU sold Billboard […]

It’s been known for some time that Chinese tech firm Tencent is in talks to buy a 10% stake in Universal Music Group, with an option to acquire another 10% for up to a year afterwards. The deal is thought to value UMG at around €30bn, but now there’s been a development: Tencent may not […]

Chinese technology firm Bytedance bought social-video app Musical·ly for reportedly north-of-$800m in November 2017. Then, in August 2018, it folded Musical·ly into TikTok (obligatory reminder: Musical·ly had nothing to do with us, Music Ally, and thus we’re still open to nine-digit acquisition offers…) But in a parallel reality, Musical·ly is now owned by… Facebook! Well, Buzzfeed News […]

Shazam reached 478 million annual active users in 2018, which is 78 million more than in the previous year. The company’s revenues fell by 23% to £31.4m last year, but it swung from a loss of £17.7m in 2017 to a profit of just under £124m in 2018.  That’s the benefit of being bought by […]

Another story for the soon-to-be-bulging file of ‘TikTok killers’ – most of which will turn out to be anything but. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google “has held discussions” about acquiring a startup called Firework, whose smartphone app is like TikTok, but with a 30-second limit (rather than 15) for videos, and an older demographic. […]

Big moves are afoot in China’s music-streaming world, with reports that tech giant Alibaba is acquiring a 20% stake in NetEase Cloud Music, as part of a wider $2bn investment in the latter’s parent company NetEase. MBW suggests that the deal may value NetEase Cloud Music as high as $9bn – less than half that of rival […]

There’s a whole sub-genre of YouTube channels and Instagram accounts dedicated to documenting ‘drama’ – the breakups, makeups, shade and almighty rows within the world of social-media stars. Today, music-industry media feels like our own version of that, as all hell broke loose over the news that Big Machine Label Group has been acquired by Scooter […]

TI Media (formerly magazine publisher Time, Inc’s UK subsidiary) is selling two of its key music properties to BandLab Technologies, the company behind the BandLab music-creation app. NME and Uncut are the brands in question: the former is the digital-only incarnation of the famous weekly music magazine – the print edition closed in 2018 – […]

Downtown Music Publishing’s parent firm is acquiring AVL Digital Group, the company that includes distributors CD Baby, DashGo and Soundrop, as well as video-monetisation outfit AdRev. In its announcement of the deal, Downtown noted that AVL’s companies work with more than 900k artists, labels and rightsholders, while distributing / making money for more than 10m tracks in […]

There is more consolidation afoot in the music-licensing world, with Songtradr announcing yesterday that it has acquired British firm Big Sync Music. The latter company focuses on sourcing music for brand campaigns, and counts Dove, Samsung, Amazon, Johnnie Walker and Axe among its clients. Songtradr intends to combine the agency’s contacts and knowledge with its […]

When Spotify announced that it was buying podcast companies Gimlet Media and Anchor, it declined to say how much it was paying, other than that they were part of a wider $400m-$500m earmarked for podcast acquisitions. “We’re not commenting on that today, because we have other transactions in the works, and I don’t want transactions […]

Rumours that Spotify was about to shell out $200m-plus on podcast production company Gimlet Media were correct: the acquisition was announced today. But Spotify is also buying a second company, Anchor, which makes an app that people can use to create their own podcasts. The value of the acquisitions has not yet been announced (Spotify […]

After a troubling start to 2019 (and to be honest, a pretty worrying 2018 for artists whose payments were delayed) PledgeMusic is asking for patience as it sorts out its financial issues. “The situation that PledgeMusic has found itself in is unacceptable and to all of the artists, managers, labels and fans who have put […]

As it prepares to close its acquisition of Pandora, satellite-radio service SiriusXM has published its latest quarterly financials. We already new from the company’s trading update earlier this month that it ended 2018 with 34 million subscribers in the US. Now we also know that SiriusXM’s revenues grew by 6% to $5.8bn last year – […]