Alphabet/Google leads $70m funding for UnitedMasters startup

Alphabet (the parent company of Internet giant Google) is reportedly one of the big investors in a new US-based music startup called UnitedMasters - whioch recently raised some $70m in an investment round that includes Alphabet, VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, and 20th Century Fox.

UnitedMasters has been founded by the ex President of Urban Music at Interscope Records, Steve Stoute. The company's core business is digital music distribution and insights; basically UnitedMasters selects independent artists from its community and helps them to go to the next level, offering financial and marketing support. At the heart of this all there is a data tool which helps unsigned acts target their top fans with online advertising for tours, merch and records. Moreover, artists pay the company to digitally distribute their music and then for added services – but acts retain ownership of their masters.

Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, has been named on UnitedMasters’ board and i a blog post he explained:

Steve thought: What if there were a platform that instantly enabled musical artists to market themselves globally as effectively as the top technology companies market to their customers?
Such a platform would free musicians from dependencies on the old model while increasing their income tenfold. It would create unprecedented intimacy between artists and fans, while making artists truly independent.
But there was a huge challenge. To build such a platform, the company had to be world class in three distinctly different disciplines: music, advertising, and technology. Steve already had the expertise in music and advertising, but technology was the key and that’s when he called me.
Together, we recruited a phenomenal technology team with members from distinguished companies such as Facebook, Dropbox, and Pandora. I think that the UnitedMasters engineering team is one of the best in the technology industry, but you can judge for yourself.