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Culver City-based Maestro, a platform used by pop star Billie Eilish and other entertainers to stream their performances, has landed $15 million in a Series B round.
It was backed by industry heavyweights from Sony Music Entertainment to Twitch's co-founder Kevin Lin, who are eying digital concerts and live streamed shopping as future revenue hot spots.
<p>The interactive video platform lets creators like Eilish make money from ticket sales, subscriptions and even streamed ecommerce events. The company touts a long list of artist and industry partners, including Epic Games, Shopify, Microsoft, Adweek and Universal Music Group. </p><p>Tuesday's announcement comes after a year of steady growth for Maestro. The company said in a statement that revenue tripled in 2020. In the past six months, its team has grown five times over.</p><p>And since May, when the company launched its monetization features, creators on the platform have secured "millions of dollars."</p>
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<img
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data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxMjUzNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MzE5OTM5OX0.vl9XyzrzKJTsYt8YrTG0WD0a2IzFByp7Ym_iFdVW-tQ/image.jpg?width=980"
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data-rm-shortcode-id="f8f92ab5169db8e140ca2c8ebe81643d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Maestro's interactive video platform lets creators make money from ticket sales, subscriptions and even streamed ecommerce events.</small></p>
<p>Especially during COVID-19, platforms like Maestro have opened up new streams of business for celebrities. Music streaming companies like <a href="https://dot.la/wave-concert-2648984388.html" target="_self">Wave</a>, Mandolin, Veeps and Looped Live have become more attractive to investors as creators find new ways to <a href="https://dot.la/livestream-concerts-boomed-during-lockdown-is-it-musics-future-or-just-a-pandemic-fad-2648201267.html" target="_self">tour virtually</a>. But it's unclear whether these sites will hold onto viewers post-pandemic.<br/></p><p>"Maestro gives artists greater flexibility and control to build the most engaging and customized events for their fans, allowing creators at any stage of their career to put together a world class live stream event," Sony Music Entertainment's Dennis Krooker said in a press release. </p><p>"We serve the creator as a partner in their journey and the achievement of their dreams," founder and CEO Ari Evans added. </p><p>The Series B bumps Maestro's total funding to $22 million. NetEase, Acronym Venture Capital and Michael and Amy Morhaime, former executives at Blizzard, contributed to the round. </p><p>A list of existing investors — SeventySix Capital, The Strand Partners, Stadia Ventures, Hersh Interactive Group, and Transcend Fund, and early Zoom employees Richard Gatchalian and Aaron Lewis — also participated. </p>
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A consortium including the Chinese-based music platform Tencent Music Entertainment announced Friday it has bought another 10% stake in Universal Music Group, which values the company at 30 billion euros. It bumps the consortium's total stake in the L.A.-based music giant to 20%.
The move will help TME's parent company Tencent broaden its reach as a leading player in music and gaming across China.
<p>"Tencent owns the three largest digital music services in China and has been investing in other services and music-based content around the world," said Larry Miller, a professor music business at NYU Steinhardt. "It provides a view of what is happening on the supply side at the world' largest music company."</p><p>The transaction is slated to close in the first half of 2021, subject to regulatory approvals, TME said.</p><p>UMG's parent company Vivendi SA also said Friday it has plans to sell additional minority stakes in Universal ahead of a listing in 2022. </p><p>The French media conglomerate said it would use cash from these transactions to reduce financial debt and finance share buyback and acquisitions. </p>Last month, Tencent <a href="https://dot.la/wave-concert-2648984388.html?q=tencent" target="_self">acquired a minority stake</a> in the L.A. virtual concerts company Wave and it also owns stakes in Spotify and Warner Music Group.
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The Chinese majority-owned Tencent Music Entertainment is acquiring a minority stake in the L.A.-based virtual concerts company Wave, giving the startup a door into the country's state-controlled internet.
Terms of the deal weren't disclosed but the agreement will allow Wave concerts to be distributed on TME's platforms, including QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music and WeSing, that operate within China's "Great Firewall." The two companies will also collaborate on developing shows for TME Live, TME's livestreaming platform the company launched in March.
<p>Tencent, TME's behemoth majority parent company, came under fire earlier this year when the Trump administration issued an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-wechat/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">executive order</a> to ban WeChat, its messaging app, in the U.S. Much like the parallel TikTok ban, that order <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/23/21531154/judge-denies-trump-administration-ban-wechat-tencent-china" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">has not amounted to much</a>. </p><p>Tencent is one of China's state-owned enterprises. The deal comes as Chinese authorities appear to be showing small signs that they could <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-12/china-s-quiet-experiment-to-let-millions-roam-the-real-internet?sref=4Kf8RwDw" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ease some of the restrictions on long-banned foreign sites</a>. </p><p>For Wave, which renders artists into avatars for real-time performance and fan interaction in imaginative digital settings, the deal not only gives it – and the artists who work with the company – access to what can be a hard-to-reach market, but also the monetization expertise of TME. </p><p>In the third quarter this year, <a href="https://ir.tencentmusic.com/2020-11-10-Tencent-Music-Entertainment-Group-Announces-Third-Quarter-2020-Unaudited-Financial-Results" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">about 70% of TME's revenue came from "social entertainment services"</a> such as virtual tipping and digital gifts. Those are tools that Wave already uses to an extent but which have been slower to take off in the West compared to the Asian markets, where such consumer behavior is far more ingrained. Wave's new partner may help to accelerate their use, at a time when <a href="https://dot.la/music-startups-2647008629.html" target="_self">artists are particularly hungry for more revenue</a>. </p><p>Wave launched five years ago as a VR-only company but has since made its shows available on social media platforms including Twitch, YouTube and TikTok, in addition to gaming consoles and headsets. The company <a href="https://dot.la/wave-virtual-concerts-2646166627.html" target="_self">raised a $30 million Series B round</a> in June. It has orchestrated over 50 shows for artists, including John Legend and The Weeknd, whose <a href="https://dot.la/the-weeknds-concert-on-besieged-tiktok-2646923010.html" target="_self">TikTok performance in August</a> attracted over 2 million unique viewers. </p><p>TME is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. In addition to Wave it also owns stakes in Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Spotify. </p><p>---</p><p><em>Sam Blake primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Find him on Twitter @hisamblake and email him at samblake@dot.LA</em><br/></p>
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