INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Amuse, the Swedish startup that offers a free distribution service for artists wanting to get their music on Spotify, Apple Music et al.,
The round is led by Lakestar, and Raine Ventures, and will be used to expand the company operations globally, including building out a
bigger presence in the U.S.Founded in Stockholm in 2015 by a team of music industry experts including Diego Farias, Christian Wilsson, Jimmy
for musicians to distribute their music globally and, crucially, to be discovered.As co-founder and CEO Farias explained in a call, it does
this via a free music distribution service that makes it easy and cost-free for new and unsigned artists to get their music into all of the
major music services like Apple Music, Spotify, and Deezer etc., and in a way that means they keep 100 percent of the royalties
Similar services typically either charge an annual fee or take a cut of any revenue generated or both.Amuse also provides a dashboard
displaying and helping to make sense of data relating to how well your tracks are performing on the streaming apps and download stores you
have chosen to distribute on
for the record deal.Namely, Amuse uses the data that it has access to via users of its music distribution service to analyze music
The company then offers to sign the most promising artists to its own re-imagined record label through a licensing deal whereby they still
own their work, rather than a traditional recoding contract
This consists of a 50/50 split of streaming and download revenue and means artists have access to what Amuse claims is large-scale
promotion.Throughout our conversation Farias was very keen to stress that he sees this as a partnership of equals, where the interests of
scaling up the success and reach of an artist signed by Amuse are equally aligned
The type of value-add that the Amuse team will bring will vary depending on artist and what they need most, but will include things like
public relations, marketing, branding, and having a more direct line to the online distributors it partners with
Mohaupt, former Warner Music Group board member
Gordon Rubenstein, Managing Partner, Raine Ventures, is also joining as a board observer.Dharmash Mistry, General Partner at Lakestar, says
To that end, Farias tells me Amuse is opening an office in L.A.
