South Korea's MyMusicTaste gets $11m Series C
KTB Network has led an $11 million Series C funding round for MyMusicTaste, a Korean crowdsourcing platform operator focused on organizing fan-requested concerts.
Korea’s Stonebridge Capital and Yellow Dog also participated. Existing backers that re-upped in the round included Softbank Ventures Korea, Samsung Venture Investment, Golden Gate Ventures, Formation 8 and Bokwang Investment.
It follows a $4 million Series A in 2015 and a $6.5 million Series B later the same year, which also included participation from Timewise Investment and DT Capital. The fresh capital will be used for expansions in Asia, Europe, North and South America.
Founded in 2013, MyMusicTaste acts as a mediator between musicians, event promoters, and fans. The platform encourages the staging of fan-requested concerts by lowering the financial risks of producing live performances. This is achieved by collecting and processing data about fan interest that is relevant to concert economics and facilitating ticketing.
“The $28 billion live music industry keeps growing, yet many concert promoters are still organizing events based on their gut-feeling, which results in hits-and-misses,” said Ethan Jaeseok Lee, co-founder and CEO of MyMusicTaste. “While bigger players survive the missteps, the small, local promoters, will, more often than not, go out of business.”
The company claims to have more than 1.3 million users worldwide, 99% of which are outside of Korea. It has organized more than 140 events to date and expects to double this number in 2018. Operations so far encompass 32 countries with services in 13 different languages and maintain a strong focus on the promotion of Korean pop concerts in Europe and North America.
Online services that connect music fans with artists is an established trend in the US, with VC-backed companies including ReverbNation, BandPage and Songkick. In Korea, interest in the segment extends a recent spike in demand for cultural exports. Private equity confidence in the sector has been largely connected to growth in Chinese demand for a range of Korean cross-border content and consumer products.
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