Songtradr acquires creative music agency MassiveMusic – Music Business Worldwide

B2B music licensing marketplace Songtradr has acquired creative music agency MassiveMusic.

MassiveMusic, which has approximately 85 employees with offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo, will now lead the B2B Music Services Division of Songtradr Group.

The acquired company creates and curates music, sonic branding solutions and music management for global brands such as Nike, Heineken, Apple and UEFA.

MassiveMusic claims to have launched the world’s first “data-driven sonic branding tool” this year called MassiveBASS, a platform that the company says “combines art and science and predicts success in recall, distinctiveness and connection to brand personality”.

MassiveMusic has also won awards such as the Cannes Gold Lion, D&AD, CLIO, Transform and more.

MassiveMusic says that it has seen “impressive growth over the past year, despite the backdrop of COVID-19”, delivering double digit revenue growth in 2020 in comparison to 2019.

The deal marks Songtradr’s fourth acquisition of 2021. It follows the company’s acquisition of music and sound design firm Song Zu (in a multi-million dollar deal) in March and of Tunefind and Pretzel in April.

In November, Songtradr – which describes itself as “the world’s largest B2B music licensing marketplace” – also acquired UK-based sync licensing business Cuesongs.

In 2019 it acquired Big Sync Music and in September 2020 announced its investment into ASX listed music data company Jaxsta.

Songtradr has over 300,000 tracks licensed through its ecosystem and more than 1.5m tracks on its platform.

“MassiveMusic has built a standout reputation for bold, brilliant, creative music solutions for brands over the last 20+ years.” 

Paul Wiltshire, Songtradr

“MassiveMusic has built a standout reputation for bold, brilliant, creative music solutions for brands over the last 20+ years,” said Paul Wiltshire, CEO of Songtradr.

“The complexities of the B2B music industry have made it challenging to fully adopt and leverage technology, limiting it from experiencing the same growth as the consumer music industry. 

“Bringing our companies and competencies together creates the scale and trust to enable a true transformation of the B2B music industry and unlock significant growth potential.” 

“We are looking forward to helping our global clients grow: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger; if you allow me to quote the revolutionary Daft Punk.”

Hans Brouwer, MassiveMusic

Hans Brouwer, Founder and CEO of MassiveMusic, said:  “At MassiveMusic we are very excited to be joining forces with Songtradr.

“Our services are fully complementary to each other, allowing us to further enrich the services that we provide to our clients.

Added Brouwer: “The global brands and talented creative agencies we work with can all profit from the unique proposition that is created by combining the world’s biggest B2B music licensing technology company with the leading global creative music agency.

“The thing that excites me the most is how our visions, ambitions and cultures are aligned. From the first meeting onwards our partnership felt like we’d been in a band for a long time already.

“We are looking forward to helping our global clients grow: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger; if you allow me to quote the revolutionary Daft Punk.”

Songtradr, which raised $30 million in a Series C round last summer, recently launched a new brand-facing division, Vinyl By Songtradr, under the leadership of ex-UMG exec Mike Tunnicliffe, and ex-Coca Cola exec Joe Belliotti.Music Business Worldwide