Songfinch wants to create a “middle class of musicians” and help more people make money in the music industry.
The Chicago-based startup, which connects users with songwriters who can turn someone’s personal stories or feelings into unique, professional-quality songs, announced a $17 million Series A funding round this week.
The round, which was led by Valor Siren Ventures, brings the company’s total funding to-date to $21.8 million and comes after a previous $5 million seed round led by Corazon Capital, which also participated in this new Series A round.
The company has brought in big names like Quincy Jones, Doja Cat and The Weeknd as investors in the past, but CEO and co-founder John Williamson told Chicago Inno that unlike other prominent Chicago startups like Cameo, Songfinch is not focused on the celebrity market.
Instead, Songfinch is focused on working with lesser-known, independent musicians.
"In an industry where the top 2% artists earn over 80% of the revenue, up until this point, there hasn't really been much of a middle class in music. You either work on music as a side hustle or you're a professional and you do it to the tune of a big audience," Williamson said. "Well, we've created essentially what I'm recognizing as the first bottom up marketplace, allowing us the ability to only focus on talent, rather than getting artists with big follower counts."
Artists earn on average $25,000 per year on the Songfinch platform with around 15% of the “active artist” community earning more than $50,000. The company’s revenue has grown more than 27,000% over the last three years with more than $12 million paid to Songfinch artists.
While over 90% of the platform is used for requests for things like anniversaries and other special occasions, Williamson said business-to-business transactions could becoming a bigger part of the equation in the future.
“Three of the four founders come from B2B music licensing so we’re beginning to leverage this community to operate within that B2B space. We just did a Toyota spot for $30,000 and an Alka-Seltzer spot for $25,000," he said.
Williamson has no plans to move the company from Chicago anytime soon.
"I've been told for the last two decades that to be able to disrupt the music industry, I would have to move to one of the two coasts," he said, adding that he feels he's accomplished everything he needs to in Chicago.
Songfinch expects to hit $40 million in revenue in 2022, up from $5.5 million from the previous year and is now up to 70 full-time employees.
