Soundtrack Your Brand, a Sweden-based business-to-business music streaming platform, raised $22m on Friday from a consortium that featured telecommunications firm TeliaSonera.
The round was co-led by Industrifonden, the investment arm of Sweden’s government, and venture capital firm Balderton Capital. It included HMP, the family office of clothing retailer H&M’s owners, the Persson family, as well as Northzone, Creandum and angel investors Stefan Blom and Jörg Mohaup.
Spun out of Spotify in 2013, Soundtrack Your Brand combines data analytics technology with human curation to provide corporate customers with curated, brand-focused playlists that can be streamed in public in a bid to help boost sales and keep staff motivated.
Spotify did not take part in the latest round but maintains a stake sized at about 15%. Soundtrack Your Brand raised the cash as it looks to divert away from its ex-parent company’s platform to an offering centred on its own cloud-based music library.
TeliaSonera previously led Soundtrack Your Brand’s $15m series B round in 2015, with participation from Creandum, Northzone, Play Networks and Wellington Financial. The company has not revealed details about its series A round.
Andreas Liffgarden, executive chairman and co-founder of Soundtrack Your Brand, said: “Background music today is sold as a utility, and there is rarely much thought going into what music brands are playing and why.
“Today’s background music sucks for brands and consumers alike, and it is hurting the music industry at large. As lovers of music and technology, we are completely overhauling this industry, to once and for all kill bad background music.”
– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site, Global Government Venturing.