UPDATED 06:30 EDT / APRIL 24 2015

NEWS

Social music app maker Smule raises $38 million

smuleSocial music app maker Smule Inc. has raised $38 million in new funding, consisting of $26 million in equity and $12 million in debt funding.

According to reports, the equity round was led by Adams Street Partners which included previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Shasta Ventures. City National provided the debt financing.

Founded in 2008, Smule produces a range of apps that allow users to make their own music, and share the results via the Smule site with their friends. Apps including Sing! Karaoke, Magic Piano, Songify, and others have found widespread popularity, with 25 million users globally performing 12 million songs a day and 4 billion songs a year, with 1.5 terabytes of music daily being uploaded to Smule’s network.

Financially the company is bringing in some good money, with $40 million in revenue for 2014 off the back of  350,000 paying subscribers. Users can use apps for free, but can subscribe to a range of extra services, or buy certain extras as one-offs; unlike a traditional freemium offering that relies on the one-off upgrades, 85 percent of Smule’s revenue comes from subscriptions.

“With as much disruptive power as the Sony Walkman or Apple iTunes, Smule is transforming a music industry characterized by a few dozen artists performing for billions of passive listeners,” Bessemer Venture Partners David Cowan said. “Smule is proving that no one wants to just listen – we want to join the music through song, piano, guitar, composition, rap and dance.”

Including the new round and debt financing, Smule has raised $80.1 million to-date. Previous investors who didn’t participate in the new round include ROTH Capital Partners
Granite Ventures, 500 Startups and Floodgate.

The company said it would use the new funds to invest in marketing, product development and international expansion.


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