In December, we suggested that the music business shouldn’t sleep on the creator revolution, after Singapore-based music making platform BandLab raised a significant new sum of funding.
BandLab’s Series B round was revealed in April to have closed at $65 million, with a post-money valuation of $315 million, and comes at a buoyant time for the music creator sector.
Today brings further evidence of this, as music production marketplace and distributor BeatStars reveals that it has paid out $200 million to date, to creators worldwide who license and sell beats and sounds via its platform.
The payout update was officially revealed by founder Abe Batshon on Twitch on Wednesday (June 1).
BeatStars’ new payout figure marks the latest financial milestone for the company, having revealed in July last year that it had paid out $150 million to creators.
Abe Batshon tells MBW that BeatStars is hoping to pay out close to $100 million this year and that the company has “plans to grow those earnings exponentially over the next 5 years with new innovative business models and global accessibility”.
The platform, founded in 2009, announced in July 2020 that it had paid out $85 million up until that date to its creators since it launched.
BeatStars, which has been the source of samples for hits like Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road, Card B’s Up, and Drake’s Lemmon Pepper Freestyle, reports to have 3 million active members in over 100 countries.
Outside of its beats marketplace, BeatStars offers tools like BeatStars Studio, BeatStars Promote, Beat ID, BeatStars Distribution, and BeatStars Publishing, in partnership with Sony Music Publishing.
“Although this is a great milestone that not many companies have achieved, for us it’s just another motivating factor to continue our mission of empowering the millions of music creators around the world.”
Abe Batshon
Speaking to MBW, founder Abe Batshon, said: “The $200 million paid to our creators from our platform is just a reminder of the larger purpose that we have as a company, which is to impact people’s lives.
“Although this is a great milestone that not many companies have achieved, for us it’s just another motivating factor to continue our mission of empowering the millions of music creators around the world.”
Added Batshon: “Since we launched in 2009, we’ve seen so many reverberating effects to the creator economy because of the success our creators have had at BeatStars.
“We’ve seen complimentary services like sound libraries, distribution, publishing and labels explode over the years because of the millions of songs created on our platform. We hope to see even more innovation in the space to help our creators achieve more opportunities to make a living doing what they love doing.”
Commenting on how he feels BeatStars is positioned in the market in 2022, Batshon said that, “although the market is starting to heat up and become competitive, BeatStars is still the most innovative platform run by the most caring and driven people in our industry”.
Asked about his predictions for the future of the music making marketplace sector, the impact it will have on music being released and the revenue generating opportunities it will bring for creators, Batshon told MBW that, “BeatStars has single-handedly shortened the industry’s average time it takes for an artist to create a song and commercially distribute a song, possibly in half over the last 10 years.
He added: “Clearly indicated by the amount of releases popping up on Spotify daily. We believe this trend will continue and with all of the new products coming to BeatStars we will be the driving force for enabling millions more songs to be created and distributed around the world.”Music Business Worldwide
