25 Soaring Music Technology Companies & Startups
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According to the RIAA, recorded music revenues grew by 9.3% in 2023 (reaching $8.4B). Music streaming saw unprecedented growth, too.
The RIAA cites that of the $8.4 billion, streaming accounted for $7.0 billion or 84% of total recorded music revenues. Streaming platforms, the blockchain, and the continued rise of networking platforms as the main drivers behind this consistent growth.
This list presents 25 trending startups that are making an impact on the music space.
1. Tracklib
5-year search growth: 12%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2014
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Funding: $20.9M (Series A)
What they do: Tracklib is a library that allows content creators to sample music for their projects. For $5.99 a month, users get licensed download access to over 100,000 songs and tracks. The platform has attracted significant music personalities varying from platinum artists such as J Cole to Grammy-winning producers such as Questlove.
2. Artlist
5-year search growth: 319%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2016
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Funding: $48M (Series Unknown)
What they do: Artlist is a music licensing platform that provides filmmakers, video creators, and other creative professionals with high-quality, royalty-free music and sound effects. With a focus on simplicity and affordability, Artlist offers a range of subscription plans and a diverse catalog of tracks that can be easily searched, downloaded, and licensed for use in a variety of creative projects. The platform also offers a suite of intuitive and innovative tools that enable users to easily integrate music into their projects and share their work with others.
3. Indify
5-year search growth: 1,300%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2015
Location: New York, New York
Funding: $1.2M (Seed)
What they do: Indify is a networking platform designed to connect music artists with music investors. Artists use the platform to seek funding for their new singles or albums. In exchange, investors get a share of the revenue coming from the project. Additionally, the startup incorporates artificial intelligence to analyze data and generate a ranking of upcoming artists. The algorithm was able to flag and pinpoint big names such as Khalid, Post Malone and Billie Eilish before they “blew up.”
4. OneOf
5-year search growth: 30%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2021
Location: Miami, Florida
Funding: $12.6M (Seed)
What they do: OneOf is a cooperative community for artists and fans. With a $0 minting cost, OneOf offers musical artists a way to create their digital assets at low prices and minimal environmental damage.
5. SoundBridge
5-year search growth: 0%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2014
Location: Brighton, Massachusetts
Funding: Undisclosed (Non-Equity Assistance)
What they do: SoundBridge is a digital audio workstation designed to be accessible. While building the workstation, the company had one thing in mind, “deliver a super simple workstation that anybody can use.” SoundBridge’s only round of funding to date has come from Northeastern University when it joined its venture accelerator.
6. AlphaBeats
5-year search growth: 3,233%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2019
Location: Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Funding: $2.3M (Seed)
What they do: AlphaBeats combines music with healthcare to deliver a stress-management platform. The application can measure a person’s stress level and play music to relax the brain. AlphaBeats separates itself from other similar platforms by allowing users to relax with their favorite music rather than simply providing pre-set sounds. This is made possible by the startup’s intelligent algorithm that augments songs to make them more relaxing. According to the startup, their platform makes music 3 times more comfortable than other solutions.
7. Metronaut
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2016
Location: Paris, France
Funding: $4.7M (Early Stage VC)
What they do: Metronaut is a music education platform. Instead of focusing on improving a user’s voice, the platform is intended to help people master the musical instrument of their choice. The startup’s application goes beyond just digital music sheets by providing annotation capabilities and tempo selection. Metronaut has already been selected as Apple’s “App of the Day” in over 120 countries.
8. Dice.fm
5-year search growth: 6,775%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2014
Location: London, United Kingdom
Funding: $242M (Series D)
What they do: Dice.fm is a ticketing platform for live events, such as concerts, festivals, and comedy shows. This startup focuses on the fan experience by offering a wide selection of live events, show recommendations and upfront pricing. Dice raised $65 million in Series D funding in August 2023.
9. Tunify
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2012
Location: Houthalen, Belgium
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Tunify has created software that personalizes playlists. The software is intended to help businesses quickly stream the correct type of music for their image. Initially, users answer some questions that allow the algorithm to recognize what type of business it is. Then, based on the answers to the questions, the software comes up with a tailored playlist that can stream immediately. Tunify’s clients can choose from three software packages, depending on the features they need.
10. Riyaz
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2016
Location: Bangalore, India
Funding: $305K (Seed)
What they do: Riyaz is a music education platform designed to help users improve their singing. The platform can listen to a user’s singing voice and provide unbiased, instant feedback. Their excellent 4.7 stars and 4.5 stars rating on App Store and Play Store, respectively, has allowed the startup to amass over 2 million users.
11. Vertigo Music
5-year search growth: 0%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2012
Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
Funding: $15M (Convertible Note)
What they do: Vertigo Music’s vision is to “make it easier to bond with friends over the music you love, even when miles apart.” To make their vision a reality, the startup has created a mobile app that can play music while users are taking part in live video or chat. To ensure legal compliance, Vertigo Music plays music directly from the streaming platform the user has linked to the startup’s app.
12. Volta
5-year search growth: 24%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2019
Location: London, England
Funding: $3.8M (Seed)
What they do: Volta combines music with virtual reality. This allows artists to create mixed reality experiences and performances. Another unique Volta feature is that artists can broadcast their events from the app into streaming platforms, such as YouTube and Twitch. The platform is still in its testing phase and users can join a waitlist to get early access.
13. Sunhouse
5-year search growth: 69%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2014
Location: Long Island, New York
Funding: $94K (Seed)
What they do: Sunhouse has developed a technology they call “Sensory Percussion” that, simply put, supercharges your drum set. This allows drummers to control melodies and harmonies, add orchestra and combine samples from different songs, all on their drum set. The technology is powered and supported by artificial intelligence, sensors and signal technology. Having come out of New York University’s venture incubator, Sunhouse is backed by Backstage Capital, Magic Carpet and Futureworks.
14. Epidemic Sound
5-year search growth: 27%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2009
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Funding: $508.9M (Private Equity)
What they do: Epidemic Sound is a cloud-based music library. It offers a catalog of music tracks that can be used in different digital media projects. Instead of buying the rights to a single track, users can subscribe to Epidemic Sound’s library and get legal rights to over 35,000 tracks and over 90,000 sound effects. Although the $1.4B-valued startup is still burning money, it reported a 49% YoY revenue growth in 2020.
15. UnitedMasters
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2017
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Funding: $170M (Series C)
What they do: UnitedMasters is a music distribution and marketing service. Artists can release their music right from iMessage into all major streaming platforms. The New York-based startup also helps artists connect to major brands such as Apple Music, the NBA, Bose, the NFL, and more.
16. Corite
5-year search growth: 40%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2018
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Funding: $732K (Seed)
What they do: Corite operates a digital music streaming platform. What separates Corite from big streaming media, such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc., is that it also serves as a crowdfunding space for music projects. For instance, an up-and-coming artist can post a campaign asking for funds for a new project. Fans can then invest in the campaign, and if it is a success, they get a share of the campaign’s earnings. Corite is also trying to launch a cryptocurrency. Their $CO token already raised $2.2M in pre-sales.
17. Artiphon
5-year search growth: 9%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2011
Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Funding: $4.7M (Series Unknown)
What they do: Artiphon is the manufacturer of Orba, a MIDI controller that helps artists create songs. The controller can interpret tapping, waving and sliding. And can seamlessly switch between violin, piano, drums and guitar. Artiphon has raised $1M in pre-orders to date.
18. Heir Apparent
5-year search growth: 40%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2017
Location: Los Angeles, California
Funding: $10M (Seed)
What they do: Heir Apparent is a music discovery application. Artists upload their projects into the application. And fans vote on projects that they enjoy. Songs that get positive feedback are rewarded with tangible rewards, as well as clout. Heir Apparent’s rewards are powered by its own digital currency called Crown. The startup’s project is still in its testing phase.
19. Songfinch
5-year search growth: 650%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2016
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Funding: $31.3M (Series A)
What they do: Songfinch is a service that generates personalized songs.. Users can go into the platform and request a song for an event (i.e., an anniversary) and the startup’s artists will create a piece suited to that occasion. Songfinch collaborates with artists who have played in over 10,000 concerts and have over 200M streams on different platforms.
20. Audius
5-year search growth: 900%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2018
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: $13.6M (Series Unknown)
What they do: Audius is basically SoundCloud on the blockchain. The platform is governed by the $AUDIO token that gives users voting rights regarding the future of Audius. The startup is backed by world-renewed artists such as deadmau5, who serves as an advisor.
21. Sonarworks
5-year search growth: 5,900%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2012
Location: Riga, Latvia
Funding: $12.5M (Series Unknown)
What they do: Sonarworks is sound calibration software. It allows users to calibrate sounds and adjust the music they listen to depending on their preferences. For creators, the software calibrates their speakers and headphones so that artists can hear their music at the highest quality possible. Their award-winning technology has been used by over 45 Grammy-winning artists and producers.
22. BeatBread
5-year search growth: 400%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2020
Location: Los Angeles, California
Funding: $34M (Seed)
What they do: BeatBread is a music technology company that offers a range of solutions for music creators and artists. Their main product is a cloud-based music collaboration platform that allows musicians to collaborate remotely in real-time. BeatBread also offers music distribution services and a royalty collection platform for independent artists.
23. Qrates
5-year search growth: -20%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2015
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Funding: Undisclosed (Seed)
What they do: Qrates offers artists an end-to-end vinyl service. Artists can use the startup’s services to press their vinyl, access a global retail network, use their customer support, and more. Another important aspect is that artists keep up to 85% of the profits they generate.
24. Humit
5-year search growth: 58%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2017
Location: Bengaluru, India
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Humit is a music sharing and discovery application. The application is fully integrated with Spotify, meaning that users can share snippets of all songs on the Spotify platform. To make Humit more accessible, the startup is looking to integrate with Apple Music, Amazon Music and other popular streaming platforms.
25. Songtradr
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2014
Location: Santa Monica, California
Funding: $101.2M (Series D)
What they do: Songtradr is a music licensing marketplace. What makes Songtradr different from other similar startups is that it is B2B-focused. Instead of allowing everybody to get access to licensed music, Songtradr is intended to connect artists with brands, labels and other digital platforms. The $300M-valued startup saw a 100% YoY revenue growth in 2020. And according to Songtradr’s executives, the company is positioned to achieve similar growth in 2021 as well.
Conclusion
This concludes our list of music and music technology startups worth keeping an eye on.
As seen from our list, startups competing in this sector are building the marketplaces, platforms, infrastructure and instruments that are changing how music is created, listened to, shared and financed.
