Musikki, the startup providing B2C and B2B music services including the Musikki Music API, has successfully closed a new round of funding securing USD 1,000,000 from Portugal Ventures.
What started as an app for music, has been diversifying its offer to grow as a company. According to João Afonso, co-founder and CEO,
“We set up Musikki as a consumer app, dubbed ‘the IMDB of music’, but quickly diversified the offering by launching the Music API which provides all the data, content and information needed to develop a new music service. The aim of the Musikki Music API is to provide everything except the music itself. And, it was during our quest to provide a one-stop solution for music app developers that we identified the need in the B2B space to easily access and manage high quality and official music photos.”
The startup was born in Aveiro but has now headquarters in London because “the music industry is almost all based there, everything is easier and faster.” However, development takes place in Porto.
Why Porto?
As you can read in an interview to IndustriasCriativas.com, João Afonso believes the city offers several opportunities to startups in the creative industries field:
“Porto offers several recruitment opportunities. It’s also a cosmopolitan city that invests in culture and in creative industries. For us, this is an extremely relevant issue. Musikki is a global project, but before scaling, we need to refine our business model and the way we articulate with the different stakeholders of the industry. We want to create synergies with artists, publishers, promoters, concert halls and music stores. Then we’ll replicate these synergies in London, New York, Tokyo, Sao Paulo … We want, for example, to build partnerships with Casa da Música and Primavera Sound, and then replicate them with the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury.”
Musikki looks for gaps in the market, to find ways to grow.
“Spotting the gap in the market, Musikki created Exclusiph, an innovative image management and distribution tool for the music industry. All images on the Exclusiph platform will also be available via the Musikki Music API, which enables the update of any artist’s image, across potentially every music service, in a matter of seconds thereby truly revolutionising music promotion and marketing.”
With the new funds secured, Musikki today launches Exclusiph, this innovative and disruptive image management and distribution tool for the music industry, already in use by independent labels 4AD and Secretly Group.
Starting with the music industry, Exclusiph will expand into other industry verticals such as film, fashion and sports, which also are heavily dependent on timely image management and distribution systems.
