“A third of the capital will go towards fuelling organic growth and expanding the product development team. We’re growing out an office in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and then we have plans to set up a tech team in Australia, too.
“The other $US20 million is for strategic acquisitions across two lanes – one is complementary technologies that speed up our processes … the second lane is boutique music licensing companies, and what we’re looking for in these acquisitions are music buyers that represent major brands or customers that would take one to two years for us to acquire.”
Mr Wiltshire moved his family to Los Angeles to start the company in 2014, having previously been a songwriter and record producer who worked with the likes of Delta Goodrem, Vanessa Amorosi and Guy Sebastian.
Through this, he saw the struggles of independent artists, who often did not understand how to make an income, or how to collect money that was owed to them.
He also realised just how much music was being created that often went unheard before the big streaming platforms emerged.
The platform now has more than 500,000 active users from 190 countries and a quarterly growth rate of more than 30 per cent. It also has more than 1.3 million songs on the platform, and more than $1.5 million in monthly recurring revenue. Since COVID-19 began, the number of new songs released by artists has increased three times since the onset of the pandemic.
Its users include Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Disney, MTV, Apple, Microsoft, Fox and CBS.
“Back [in the late 1990s and early 2000s] there wasn’t the streaming revolution, so it was more difficult to get your music out there. I had to fly to LA to meet my music superiors and to get my music into the right TV show or film. Now it’s a much simpler process,” Mr Wiltshire said.
“We have a path to profitability by the end of 2021, although other opportunities may change that.
WiseTech Global founder and Financial Review Rich Lister Richard White is backing ASX-aspirant Songtradr.
“Our plans in terms of building a global ecosystem are large ones.”
As well as connecting musicians with agencies that want to use their songs, the platform also uses artificial intelligence to automatically describe a piece of music and to match pieces of music with advertisers looking for a song that will appeal to a particular audience.
Mr Wiltshire said he is considering an ASX listing for the business longer term, but for now his focus is on deploying the fresh capital.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Songtradr’s growth has remained intact. In the long run the hit to the live music sector could become a tailwind for the business, but Mr Wiltshire said it would not replace the revenue artists could make from live shows.
“Many musicians live off that from week to week, and it takes time to generate income from music digitally,” he said.
“But I believe it’s the right time for artists who are creators to put their energy into creating and releasing more music.
“It’s built on artists seeing their music as a business, activating all of those income streams, being discoverable … and working their social media and other channels to support that.”
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