Soundtrack Your Brand (SYB), the brainchild of an ex-Spotify executive and the quickest growing background music company, has raised $22 million in a round of funding.
The round was led by UK’s Balderton Capital and Industrifonden, which is a Nordic venture capital fund. The funding, SYB revealed will be used for the business’ worldwide expansion, as well as improving the service. The company intends to use the money to help sell music streaming to businesses.
SYB was founded in 2013 by Andreas Liffgarden and Ola Sars who are ex-global head of business at Spotify and co-founder of Beats Music, respectively. SYB develops music playlists that cater to the needs of its clients, which include the likes of Tag Heur and McDonald’s.
The background music company also operates Spotify Business in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The company has asserted that its customer base, as well as overall business, have experienced a growth of more than 400 percent.
The latest round of funding also saw participation from HMP, Northzone, Creandum and Telia. Interestingly, Spotify – which owns 15 percent of SYB’s share capital – did not participate. Spotify is also the biggest external owner of SYB. The amount of shares issued by SYB, as well as the valuation of the company is not known.
The Way Forward
Entrepreneur Johan Englund, who is also the investment manager of Industrifonden, will join SYB’s board of directors. Giving him company will be Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen, who is the general partner at Balderton Capital. Fjeldsoe-Nielsen has been with both Dropbox and Uber as head of mobile.
He is optimistic that SYB will revolutionize the way in which people perceive background music.
SYB has the edge over its rivals like Mood Media as its distribution costs are much lower. The reason for having a lower distribution cost is that the product is digital, which aids SYB in targeting more customers.
The company distributes the background music through USB sticks, CD sand the satellite feeds. SYB focuses on both small businesses and the large chains. The company focuses on the strategy that music will keep customers stay put at a store longer, which will aid in boosting sales. SYB has received funding on $40 million to date.
SYB’s co-founder and Chairman Liffgarden is of the belief that currently, background music is simply being “sold as a utility.” He feels that there is no thought being put into what a music brand is playing and why it is playing the same. Therefore, SYB aims to revamp the industry completely,
“Today’s background music sucks for brands and consumers alike, and it’s hurting the music industry at large. As lovers of music and technology, we’re completely overhauling this industry, to once and for all kill bad background music,” noted Liffgarden.
With the $22 million funding in its kitty, SYB is well on course to achieve this target, as well as plans of global expansion.
Photo: Sorosh Tavakoll | Flickr
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