Music-marketing startup Un:hurd has announced a new \u2018seven-figure\u2019 funding round that includes several prominent investors from the music industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kobalt founder Willard Ahdritz, Musiio founder Hazel Savage and Trapital\u2019s Dan Runcie are all chipping in to the round alongside Leansquare VC and Mindset Ventures Music Tech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alongside the round, Un:hurd said that it now has more than 185,000 artists and labels signed up to its platform, which ranges across automated advertising, playlist pitching and release-cycle planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The company also revealed new partnerships with Amuse, Kosign and Bandsintown; announced plans to launch an Android app this November; and launched a new vertical called \u2018Artist Deals\u2019 that will see it offering advances to \u201chigh potential\u201d artists who are building momentum using its tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CEO Alex Brees talked to Music Ally about the news, starting with those industry investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s really important to me is that we have people who have either been there and done it in the music-tech space \u2013\u00a0which by the way, is very hard to find \u2013\u00a0or people that have a deep understanding of what\u2019s going on in the sector,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\u201cUltimately, this means we make fewer mistakes, we learn our industry in granular detail quickly and we use this information to understand what we should be focusing on. Combining this knowledge base with our own understanding of what\u2019s going on in the industry gives us a really good encyclopaedia of knowledge to keep us innovating in the right areas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Un:hurd launched four years ago, and the time since has seen a growing number of startups \u2013\u00a0and talk within the industry \u2013 focusing on how labels and artist teams can make smarter use of data and automation in their marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe were one of the first start-ups to talk about leveraging data to reduce uncertainty with marketing decisions. But now, we see a new one at least every month,\u201d said Brees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great, I think the more businesses we have trying to solve the problem of cutting through the noise, or giving artists back time to focus on creating music, the more likely we are to solve this problem as an industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think AI has expedited these initiatives, it\u2019s really easy to use AI to create marketing ideas and so naturally this opens doors for businesses to exploit,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we need to be conscious of is those businesses that are creating their own models vs those that are leveraging big models to create \u2018generic\u2019 ideas \u2013 that isn\u2019t really going to help artists in the tailored and nuanced way they need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new \u2018Artist Deals\u2019 vertical is an interesting shift for Un:hurd, taking it away from being just a tool used by\/for artists into being a label-style funding source too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re sitting on music from over 185,000 artists. Some of this music is great music and I was listening to a few of our artists one day when I thought: I want to lean-in more,\u201d is how Brees described the origin story for this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBoth our tech platform and our agency team have delivered some incredible marketing results over the last year, whether it\u2019s working on The K\u2019s and their number 1 album, Tinie Tempah\u2019s relaunch, Future Utopia or some big records we can\u2019t speak about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe know how to grow an artist\u2019s profile. So, we\u2019ve developed an A&R model which uses proprietary statistical calculations to identify artists who meet criteria we deem important and reflect a healthy core audience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe then use our marketing advances model to offer the marketing spend we feel would make the biggest impact on an artist\u2019s career and we work out a deal with the artist. It\u2019s a really beautiful and equitable offering for our community.\u201d<\/p>\n