2022 music tech funding rounds, IPOs, and SPACs
Every year, we keep track of global music/tech investment activity as one our primary signals for the emerging growth opportunities in music and culture.
We’re excited to launch the 2022 edition of our Music/Tech Investment Dashboard, featuring the following sections:
- Music/Audio Startup Funding Rounds — This is the primary tab to follow if you’re interested in venture-capital and private-equity investments in music and audio startups.
- Music/Audio Startup Investors — This tab, which is linked with the “Music/Audio Startup Funding Rounds” tab, features publicly named investors in music- and audio-tech companies.
- New Investment Funds (2022) — This new tab features private investment funds that have launched in 2022 and focus on music and entertainment.
- Music/Audio Startup Exits — This tab focuses on exits and M&A deals, including both music-focused startups and those focused on non-music audio offerings, such as podcasts.
- Artists on Cap Tables — This tab features a curated list of artists and music celebrities who have publicly announced investments in tech startups in 2022.
- Adjacent Rounds to Know — This tab features venture-capital and private-equity investments in startups that are not related to music, but could have a significant impact on the entertainment and digital-media landscape at large. For the sake of scope, we focus mostly on highlighting startups in gaming, social media, ecommerce, crypto, avatars and fan engagement.
- Music/Audio/Entertainment SPACS — This tab lists SPACs, or Special Purpose Acquisition Companies. that focus on music, media or entertainment companies and plan to IPO and/or acquire such companies in 2022.
- Music/Audio/Entertainment IPOs (non-SPACS) — This tab includes any music or entertainment companies that plan on going public this year, and are not doing so via SPAC.
Data disclaimers
What is a “music startup”? We use the same definition of a “music startup” that we first put forth in our 2020 music/tech investment report — namely, any software or hardware company that meets one of the following criteria:
- Caters specifically to music fans and/or the music industry as its target customer base.
- Does not cater specifically to the music industry, but is used extensively by music customers and helps address a pain point that the industry faces.
- Does not cater to the music industry or have music-specific customers, but has raised funds from influential music-industry investors and offers clear potential applications for entertainment.
How do we source investment data? We track and aggregate investment announcements from across multiple sources, including media companies like TechCrunch, Bloomberg, The Verge, Billboard and Variety; automated databases like Crunchbase; and direct fact-checking with startup founders and investors.
What are the data limitations? We are building out this database primarily based on publicly available data, which means we will inevitably leave out certain startups who choose not to bring their funding announcements to the press. For now, our list also has a strong Western (i.e. U.S./E.U.) bias, which may be due to the online publications we’re referencing in our data collection. That said, we believe this bias also exists to a certain extent in the music/tech investment landscape at large.
The base will be continually updated on a weekly basis through the end of the year, at which point we’ll publish our annual, members-only recap of music/tech investment activity.