£600k raised by music tech startup Audoo

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Audoo is a music technology start-up determined to revolutionise music royalty distribution. The startup recently announced a raise of £600k, the funding will help the startup to ensure artists are paid accurately by improving the monitoring of music played in commercial spaces.

Audoo’s backers include Greg Gormley (co-Founder of Bink), Luke Heron (co-founder and CEO of Testcard), Tim Davies (Director of Ventures and Chief Innovation Officer of Co-op), Ed Matthews and Marcus Watson.

Although music represents a $43 billion global industry, currently artists are only paid 12% of the generated revenue. $2.7 billion in revenue is lost annually because small business owners, like cafes, gyms and barber shops, typically stream music from personal accounts instead of buying a commercial-use license. Artists and record labels are losing huge sums because 75% of UK businesses that should have a commercial-use license don’t currently pay for one.

Audoo is on a mission to change that. The Audoo plug-in device captures music being played for a few seconds then shuts down, creating a digital fingerprint of audio. This clip is analysed and sent to the Performance Royalty Organisations (PROs). Audoo doesn’t store any of the audio data and it can be managed remotely. The analytics platform creates a specific report for each business and allows PROs to leverage customer insight and artist payment distribution.

Ryan Edwards, CEO of Audoo, said: “As an ex-musician, I know first-hand how challenging the distribution of royalties can be with its manual processes and lack of accurate data.

“Tracking performance royalties has always been a challenge in the music industry. We aim to change this by providing a tool for PROs to manoeuvre efficiently in the digital age and ensure artists are paid fairly.”

Investor Greg Gormley said: “I’m delighted to have invested in such an innovative business that will change the face of the music industry and fairly reward artists. As a technology entrepreneur, it was evident very early on that Audoo’s technology has the potential to revolutionise a much-loved industry, making it fairer and more transparent for everyone.”