Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly round-up – where we make sure you caught the five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their income and reduce their touring costs.

This week, Swedish music company Epidemic Sound took on a $450 million funding round, which gives the much talked-about firm a $1.4 billion valuation.

Meanwhile, B2B music licensing marketplace Songtradr has acquired award-winning Sydney-based music and sound design company Song Zu in a ‘multi-million dollar transaction’.

Elsewhere, global recorded music body IFPI named BTS as the world’s biggest-selling recording artist last year, but for the first time ever, no British acts made the Top 10.

Also, Believe-owned DIY distribution platform TuneCore has launched operations across Latin America headed up by Bruno Duque, while music-related NFT sales have topped $25m in the past month.

1) EPIDEMIC SOUND VALUED AT $1.4BN AS BLACKSTONE JOINS $450M INVESTMENT ROUND IN SWEDISH COMPANY

Much talked-about Swedish music company Epidemic Sound has just taken on a $450 million funding round – including money from investment giant Blackstone.

The investment sees Blackstone Growth (BXG) team up with EQT Growth in the round, which gives Epidemic Sound a $1.4 billion valuation.

Epidemic Sound’s existing investors before today included Creandum and EQT Mid-Market, as well as Atwater Capital.

Epidemic Sound, which was founded in 2009, said that the new investment would “be used to further accelerate [our] customer acquisition and invest even more aggressively in [our] core user experience”….

2) SONGTRADR ACQUIRES MUSIC AND SOUND DESIGN COMPANY SONG ZU IN MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR DEAL

B2B music licensing marketplace Songtradr has acquired award-winning Sydney-based music and sound design company Song Zu, which operates in the Australia and Asia Pacific region, with studios in Sydney and Singapore.

Described as a ‘multi-million dollar transaction’, the deal marks Songtradr’s second major acquisition since the completion of its Series C funding round in July 2020 where the company raised $30 million.

Los Angeles-based Songtradr acquired UK-based boutique sync licensing company, Cuesongs in November.

Song Zu will form part of Songtradr’s recently-launched platform, Vinyl by Songtradr, alongside acquired companies Big Sync Music (acquired by Songtradr in February 2019) and Cuesongs…

3) BTS WERE THE WORLD’S BIGGEST-SELLING RECORDING ARTIST LAST YEAR. BUT FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, NO BRITISH ACTS MADE THE TOP 10.

Each year, global recorded music body IFPI publishes a Top 10 list of artists, reflecting the biggest revenue-generating acts across all formats during the prior calendar’s 12 months.

The list for 2020 was released by IFPI last week, and is historic for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s led by a non-US or UK artist for the first time, with BTS pipping Taylor Swift and Drake to the top spot.

Secondly, artists whose recorded music is/was affiliated with Universal Music Group occupy no less than nine spots in the entire Top 10.

(Technically that’s nine-point-something when you include BTS: most of the K-pop stars’ music is released via Big Hit / Sony Music in major international territories, but their Japanese-language recordings go through Big Hit / Universal Music Japan.)…

4) TuneCore launches operations in Latin America, headed up by Bruno Duque

Believe-owned DIY distribution platform TuneCore has launched operations across Latin America.

TuneCore LATAM will support artists in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Domican Republic, Puerto Rico and Spain.

The move follows the launch of the company’s operations in Africa last month.

TuneCore LATAM will be headed up by Bruno Duque, who started his career at Sony Music in Los Angeles in the Latin Music Division before segueing into other areas of the industry…

5) MUSIC-RELATED NFT SALES HAVE TOPPED $25M IN THE PAST MONTH

The jury’s out on whether non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a music industry fad – or a transformative harbinger of the business’s future. Either way, they’re booming.

Last month it was reported that the digital collectables had generated over $100 million in sales in just 30 days across various entertainment formats.

Now, NFTs are starting to gain mainstream traction in the music industry, as evidenced by the flurry of news in the past few weeks from superstar artists selling millions of dollars worth of the digital assets to their fans.

Additionally, just today, MBW reported that video games brand Atari is getting into the NFT business in a huge way, partnering with Bondly, an e-commerce platform for digital assets, to launch NFTs across gaming, music and other areas.

Here’s a recap of just some of music’s (and musicians’) recent NFT sales, which add up to total revenue of at least $25 million in the past month alone…

Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly round-up – where we make sure you caught the five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their income and reduce their touring costs.

 Music Business Worldwide