Kobalt has raised its biggest round of funding yet

 Kobalt has raised its biggest round of funding yet

Music company Kobalt has raised its biggest round of funding yet: $75m, in a round led by media firm Hearst Entertainment.

The new funding follows a $60m Series C round in February 2015 led by Google Ventures, as well as a Series B round of $40m in 2013 and a $16m Series A round in 2008. Kobalt has thus raised $191m in funding over the last nine years.

Previous investors Balderton Capital and MSD Capital also chipped in to the latest round, but Hearst is a new backer. Kobalt joins BuzzFeed, Vice Media and AwesomenessTV in the media giant's investments.

Google Ventures did not participate in the latest round. Its managing partner Bill Maris, who played a key role in leading the 2015 investment, left GV in August 2016, and is reportedly now focusing on a new fund to invest in biotech and healthcare startups.

The $191m of lifetime investment makes Kobalt one of the most well-funded independent companies in the music industry, although the injection of new funds is unlikely to stem grumblings from some of its rivals in the publishing sector about the company's lack of profitability.

In the last five years, Kobalt has seen its annual revenues grow from $77.7m in the financial year ended 30 June 2012 to $259.9m in the year ended 30 June 2016.

However, it has remained in the red during that period, recording total net losses of $73.6m across those five years, peaking at a net loss of $27m in the year ended 30 June 2015, before narrowing to $19.5m the following year.

As for what the company plans to do with its latest $75m of funding, Kobalt said in an announcement that it will "use the new funding to further scale its unique royalty collections platform to meet the demands of the global surge in music streaming".