AudioTech 101 | Its digital genesis, the current landscape, and exciting upstarts
An introduction | Outline
Audio has made significant shifts and helped drive remarkable innovations over the past decades. Starting with the era of CDs, I’ll outline the recent road in musical evolution, explaining the key audio streaming players, outlining the monetization ecosystem, discussing prominent trends (digital live event streaming, podcasts, and education), and ending with 17 up-and-coming startups.
How do current audio distributors stack up competitively?
How do artists, agents, promoters, labels, publishers, and distributors interact and split the available economics?
Who is well-positioned to potentially take advantage of the below trends?
Trend #1: The mix shift in artist revenues towards touring, coupled with the hiatus in live events, provides an avenue of opportunity for virtual live events / digital streaming
Trend #2: Podcasts’ meteoric rise in popularity only appears natural as we look to increasingly multi-task and encourage learning in daily life
My hope is this piece acts, at the very least, as a brief primer of the current music landscape. Think of it as a top-down approach, explaining context and key drivers, before reaching the sexier takeaways.
See you on the other side!
History phase I: The golden years of music publishing | Walkman, Cassettes, Mixtapes
In 1999, the U.S. Recorded Music industry peaked at $14.6 billion in revenue, driven in large part by CD sales (making up $12.6 billion of that — see the orange bars in the graph below; depicting U.S. recorded music revenues). Big names of the era included The Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Mariah Carey, among others.
History phase II: The shift to digital downloads | Napster, iPod, Mp3
In 2001, Napster was launched — the pioneer of peer-to-peer Internet file sharing. This launch spurred a shift in consumption towards online music, and also helped spawn the inception of online music piracy. That same year, the iPod was released, which, when coupled with the growth of MP3 players, helped to garner initial interest and familiarity around digital downloads.
By September 2005, Apple released the 1st generation of the iPod Nano. This is when we begin to see the true onset of popularity with digital downloads (see the purple bars in the graph below; depicting U.S. recorded music sales volume), experiencing significant gains until 2014.
In 2001, Napster, the pioneer of peer-to-peer Internet file sharing, was launched, spurring a structural shift towards piracy and online music consumption. That same year, the iPod was released, which when coupled with the growth of MP3 players, drove a large amount of digital downloads. In September 2005, the 1st generation of the iPod Nano was released and we can see the beginning of digital download’s claim to fame (represented by the purple bars in the graph below; depicting U.S. recorded music sales volume), experiencing quite the run, at least till 2014–2017.
History phase III: The modern era of digital streaming | Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tencent Music
2012–2014 were interesting years for the music industry: not only did online download volumes plateau, but they then started decline. This is when the shift began towards digital streaming: the modern era (as I like to call it). In the audio world, Spotify launched its audio streaming platform in October 2008. In video, Netflix launched its video streaming service in February 2007. This was a game-changer for how the frontlines of the industry was able to monetize their users.
In 2019, paid subscription revenues represented $5.9 billion (or 53%) of total recorded music revenue in the U.S., up significantly from $770M in 2014. The music industry was finally recovering from its 1999 revenue peak.
From traditional radio | Cutting out the middle-men
Traditionally, music was distributed through the radio, a prominent component within cars. Radio hosts would curate the list of songs and introduce local advertising as part of commercial breaks, while also controlling a large portion of new music discovery.
In video, over-the-top (OTT) media services, direct-to-consumer (DTC), and cord cutting all came to fruition in recent years, cutting out video cable and satellite services. Similarly, audio streaming was looking to cut the middle-men (i.e. radio, iTunes, hard copy albums).
Instead of purchasing an album for $19.99 on iTunes or having to listen to commercials between your favorite mixes, consumers could now go online, gaining control over their own playlists, and paying the price through having to 1) listen to advertisements from time to time (ad-supported) or 2) pay for a premium monthly membership (subscription-based) allowing for music accessibility at the tip of one’s fingers.
As manufacturers continue to build radios in cars, radios will remain an entrenched player. However, in the future, as smarter ecosystems are built into cars and as customers gain greater familiarity with online streaming, radio will likely continue losing market share. As younger generations grow up with less exposure to radio, there will be less and less exposure to the industry.
The Current Landscape | Select players
This section will outline key audio streaming players and statistics that are available to gain a better grasp of the industry.
Tencent Music: Founded in 2012 by Jia Xin Peng and headquartered in Beijing, Tencent provides online music, online karaoke, and music-centric live streaming, with a 78% music service market share in China (as of 1Q’20 per MiDiA). Per its last 3Q’20 earnings result (as of Sep 30, 2020), the company has 646 million mobile Monthly Active Users (MAUs). Of the 646 million users, 52 million of them are paying users, at an Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU) of ¥9.40 (~$1.50 USD) / month. As of February 10, 2021, Tencent Music had a market capitalization of $44 billion and enterprise value of $41 billion per Factset.
Spotify: Founded by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon in 2006 and launched in 2008, Spotify provides digital music services to fans through both premium and ad-supported means. In 2019, Daniel announced a wider focus on “audio-first” with the acquisition of two podcast companies. From 2018 to 2020, Spotify has announced a series of acquisitions with Loudr, Gimlet Media, Parcast, SoundBetter, The Ringer, and Megaphone, aimed at increasing its area of expertise in the broader audio landscape. As of December 31, 2020, Spotify has 345 million monthly active users, 155 million subscribers, 70+ million tracks, 2.2+ million podcast titles, 4+ billion playlists, availability in 93 markets, and €21+billion in revenue paid to rightsholders since launch. As of February 10, 2021, Spotify had a market capitalization of $65 billion and enterprise value of $63 billion per Factset. Spotify Individual costs $9.99 / month, Spotify Duo (allowing for 2 accounts) costs $12.99 / month, and Spotify Family (allowing for 6 accounts) costs $14.99 / month.
iHeartRadio: Launched in 2008 by Clear Channel Radio, iHeartRadio provides a free broadcast, podcast, and streaming radio platform functioning as iHeartMedia’s radio network. Per iHeartMedia’s April 2019 IPO prospectus (S-1), the platform reaches 275 million listeners with 128 million registered users. Amazon’s Alexa provides iHeartRadio with the single largest source of its unique users. As of February 2019, iHeartMedia claims to be the #1 commercial podcast publisher globally with 148 million downloads. The S-1 mentioned that iHeartMedia was looking to separate itself from traditional music streamers through a larger library of word-spoken content, an interesting proposition considering Spotify’s February 2019 announcement that it would also incorporate podcasts. iHeartRadio Plus costs $4.99 / month while iHeartRadio All Access (adding offline listening, unlimited access to songs, and creating playlists) costs $9.99 / month.
Soundcloud: Launched in 2008 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, Soundcloud provides a social platform allowing anyone to create and share sounds. Soundcloud has subscription plans available for both creators, who pay for upload times, analytics, and advanced features, and listeners, who pay to access songs through ad-supported/premiums means, enable offline listening, or have greater accessibility to libraries. Per BusinessofApps, Soundcloud reaches 175 million people, has 25 million creators, has 200 million tracks uploaded, and was valued at $500 million in 2017, after the company was “reportedly looking to sell its business for $1 billion” in 2016. As of 2019, the app officially has 76 million monthly users.
Apple Music: Launched in 2015 by Apple, Apple Music provides music and video streaming on-demand and through curated playlists, in addition to providing access to Internet radio stations. Given a Counterpoint estimate of ~400 million global subscribers, Apple Music is one of the Top 15 music streaming platforms. With a ~21% market share, there are an implied 84 million subscribers as of 2Q’20. Apple Music’s last self clarified figure had subscribers at 60 million as of Jun 2019 with an unclear amount of paying vs. free trial accounts. An individual Apple Music plan costs $9.99 / month, while a Family Plans costs $14.99 / month with up to 5 people.
Pandora: Founded in 2000 as Savage Beast Technologies by Will Glaser, Jon Kraft, and Tim Westergren, and launched in 2004, Pandora Internet Radio is a freemium internet radio service, acquired by Sirius XM in Feb 2019 for $3.5 billion in stock. Per BusinessofApps, in 2019, Pandora had 63 million subscribers and 6.2 million paid subscribers — with the average user listening for approximately 2.25 hours per day. More than 10 billion stations have been created on Pandora, and the service was valued at $3.5 billion in 2018. Pandora Plus costs $4.99 / month, Pandora Premium costs $9.99 / month, and Pandora Premium Family costs $14.99 / month.
Amazon Music: Launched in 2007 by Amazon, Amazon Music provides a music streaming platform and online music store. Prime Music features 2 million songs and is an ad-supported service included in a Prime membership. Conversely, Amazon Music Unlimited offers 60 million songs ad-free and is an extra $7.99/month or $79/year. Without a Prime membership, Amazon Music Unlimited is $9.99/month. Amazon music is conveniently integrated in Amazon’s smart home devices, such as Echo (also known as “Alexa”). As of January 2020, Amazon Music had 55 million subscribers worldwide in all of its subscriber tiers.
YouTube Music (replacing Google Play Music): Launched in 2011, Google Play Music is a music and podcast streaming service and online music locker operated by Google. In August 2020, Google announced it would shut down the service in September 2020, replacing it with YouTube Music and Google Podcasts in December 2020. With standard non-paying accounts, users can store and upload up to 50,000 songs of their own music in their personal library at no cost. The paid subscription plan enables users to stream a larger library of music on-demand. As of May 2020, Google Play and YouTube Music had a combined 20 million paying subscribers.
Deezer: Launched in Paris in 2007 by founders Daniel Marhely and Jonathan Benassaya, Deezer allows users to listen to music from record labels including Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music (owned by Access Industries, Deezer’s parent). Per its website, Deezer has 16 million active users, 56 million tracks, 100 million playlists, and 50+ Deezer editors. Deezer Free enables access to shuffle play via mobile, Deezer Premium is $9.99 / month (no ads, unlimited skips, offline mode, all devices), and Deezer Family is $14.99 / month (access to 6 accounts).
LiveXLive (formerly known as Slacker Radio): Launched in 2007 by founders Celite Milbrandt and Dennis Mudd, Slacker Radio provides a music streaming platform with audio and video, allowing users to customize music stations. The platform offers both ad-supported and premium subscription services. In September 2017, Slacker was acquired by LiveXLive and rebranded itself in April 2019 to LiveXLive Powered by Slacker. In December 2020, the platform announced it had exceeded 1 million paid subscribers. Between January 2020 to December 2020, LiveXLive streamed over 1,800 artists and reached over 300 million people through its OTT streaming channel. The platform had more than 2 billion audio listens, 2.2 billion podcast downloads and added 32 new podcasts through PodcastOne, a wholly owned subsidiary. In April 2020, LiveXLive hosted a 48-hour music festival, “Music Lives” reaching over 50 million viewers. LiveXLive’s library of events, podcasts, and original shows are also available through Amazon, Apple TV, Roku, and Samsung TVs. LiveXLive Basic gets 128kbps audio with 6 song skips per hour, LiveXLive Plus costs $3.99 / month (removes ads, skip limitations, bit rate up to 320kbps), and LiveXLive Premium costs $9.99 / month (allows cache albums & playlists for offline listening and
Additional streaming services include 8tracks, AccuRadio, AH.fm, Bandcamp, DI.fm, Earbits, Jango, Magnatune, Napster, Spinrilla, Tidal, unRadio, and YouTube Premium.
The Current Landscape | Analyzing the components — Ad-supported streaming
Tencent Music: Implied 594 million ad-supported subscribers (646 million MAU— 52 million paying users), ~92% of MAU.
Spotify: Implied 190 million ad-supported subscribers (345 million MAU — 155 million subscribers), ~55% of MAU.
iHeartRadio: Implied 147 million ad-supported subscribers (275 million listeners — 128 million registered users), ~53% of listeners.
Soundcloud: Implied 99 million ad-supported subscribers (175 million people reached— 76 million monthly users), ~56% of people reached.
Pandora Internet Radio: Implied 57 million ad-supported subscribers (63 million subscribers— 6 paid subscribers), ~90% of subscribers.
As a very rough, yet simple proxy of ad-supported subscribers, registered/paying users can be used in some cases. However, I would note, “registered” users may not necessarily be paying and “people reached” may include an individual who listened to only one track during a month. This makes it difficult to identify and determine the magnitude of an ad-supported subscriber, who may be generating significantly more traffic than what we can approximate.
So, why do we care about the volume and footprint of ad-supported subscribers? Well, in 2020 (per company financials), Spotify generated ~€4.38 in premium subscription ARPU (€4.26 in 4Q’20), while producing €0.36 in ad-supported ARPU (€0.49 in 4Q’20). This suggests that ad-supported subscribers are about 10x less lucrative than their premium subscribers.
Tencent has, by far, the largest aggregate MAU user base, but it’s paying users pale in comparison to the 50–60% range for Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Soundcloud.
The Current Landscape | Analyzing the components — Paid subscription-based streaming
The two graphics below, from MiDiA Research and Counterpoint Technology Market Research illustrates the paying subscription base in 1Q’20 and 2Q’20.
Spotify: 155 million subscribers (as of Dec 2020, per 4Q’20 press release)
iHeartRadio: 128 million registered users (as of Apr 2019, per S-1)
Soundcloud: 76 million monthly users (as of Mar 2019, per Wikipedia)
Apple Music: ~72 million implied by MiDiA | >84 million implied by Counterpoint
Amazon Music: ~56 million implied by MiDiA | >60 million implied by Counterpoint
Tencent Music: 52 million paying users (as of Sep 2020, per 3Q’20 press release)
Google (including YouTube Music): ~24 million implied by MiDiA | >20 million implied by Counterpoint
Deezer: ~8 million implied by MiDiA
Pandora: ~4 million implied by MiDiA
Music Industry Background | The breakdown of interacting players within the ecosystem
To better understand the value chain economics, let’s back up for a second. Before we get to the distributor, there are a number of parties involved.
Within the music landscape, we have —
Artists: Create and perform music. Examples include Justin Bieber, Martin Garrix, and Ariana Grande
Agents: Represent artists; schedule concerts, tours, in-person appearances; negotiate fees and contracts for bookings. Examples include Creative Artists Agency, Paradigm Talent, ICM Partners, and William Morris Endeavor
Promoters: Publicize and market live shows, organize events, book bands, and advertise to increase occupancy at events. Examples include Live Nation, AEG Live, Another Planet, Frank Productions, and Beaver Productions
Record Label: A brand/trademark of music recordings and music videos; at times, also a publishing company. Examples include Majors (Big Three: Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group), Island Records, ABC-Paramount Records, Virgin Records
Publisher: Owns the copyright to recordings, manages songs, and is entitled royalties. Publishers also may promote songs to musicians or parties who might seek to license it (e.g. movies, promotional campaigns). Examples include Majors (Big Three: Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group), Kobalt Music Publishing, Downtown Music Publishing, Concord Music Publishing
Distributors (as discussed earlier): Licenses and distributes the music. Examples include Spotify, Apple Music, and Tencent Music
To note as well, songs have two primary components:
1) the composition, which is the copyrighted intellectual property (IP) of the songs (e.g. lyrics, page notes) and
2) the sound recording, which is the audio version of the song including production, vocals, and instrumentals, among others.
Generally, music publishers own the composition (e.g. John Lennon’s lyrics) and when a song is played anywhere, there is a series of trickle-down economics to the owners of the recording (label, artist) and composition (publisher, artist). See the depiction below to follow how this trickle-down can work.
Royalties | A hot topic between digital audio streaming providers and content owners
As the music industry transitions so does the power — from publishers to digital distributors. With this transition, royalties have been top of mind for people. Take Taylor Swift’s feud with Spotify, resulting in her moving to Tidal, and then finally to Apple Music. Swift’s issue was with the payment of royalties to artists and the ring fencing around perceived premium content. A history of Swift’s timeline leading up to 2017 can be found here. In 2018, she left Big Machine, where she began her career, for Universal Music Group, after which, Big Machine sold the rights to her first six albums to music manager Scoot Braun. In Nov 2020, Shamrock Holdings bought Taylor Swift’s old albums for $300 million. As of Feb 11, 2021, Taylor Swift announced a rerecording of her first six albums.
In November 2018, the U.S. government-mandated Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) declared that for the five years from 2018–2022, the all-in streaming royalties (covering mechanical and performance royalties) will rise by 1% annually, up to 15.1% of revenue by 2022. Streaming services would have to pay songwriters the headline rate or, if higher, up to 26.2% of their Total Content Costs (TCC).
While the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) enthusiastically described the ruling as the “biggest rate increase granted in CRB history”, a selection of streaming services (Amazon, Google/YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify) are appealing the ruling. These players believe the rates will do more harm than good for the overall music industry, and are proposing a different model for payouts. Interestingly, Apple Music is the only major U.S. music-streaming service not involved, positioning itself as “pro-artist”, accepting CRB’s current plan for the higher rates.
Industry analysts have suggested alternate win-win solutions (but positioning consumers to lose) such as having listeners pay increased monthly fees, but the proceedings for this case remain largely unclear, and the battle may remain in court for years to come per Rolling Stone.
Exciting opportunities around the corner | The two trends of focus
Within the music landscape, there are a couple sub-verticals which stand out, to me, as exciting opportunities for growth:
- The rise of virtual streaming events, made especially prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic to replace a void left from live events
- The increasing prominence of knowledge sharing in audio (e.g. Audiobooks, podcasts)
Exciting opportunities around the corner | 1. Virtual streaming events
Within the current era of streaming, artists make a lion’s share of their revenues from live entertainment. With the onset of the pandemic, tours and live events, including concerts and festivals had to be shutdown, resulting in artists missing a significant portion of that revenue. So that begs the question: how can the industry adapt and overcome to continue to drive revenue?
On the other side, frequent concert/festival goers also feel left out of the experience, being unable to connect with their artists outside of traditional streaming means.
While Patreon (a membership platform allowing content creators to run a subscription service providing rewards and perks) help to connect artists and their fans, there still lies a gap to fill for virtual experiences. A comparison of Patreon and similar competitors is depicted in the graphic below.
The digital streaming industry is expected to grow at an estimated 16% CAGR between 2019–2025, from $14 billion to $33 billion. This, in comparison to the approximate 0% for the music industry (ex-digital streaming), means digital streaming is now the major growth driver for the aggregate Music industry outside of inflation. Digital streaming is estimated to become 44% of the industry in 2025E, from 25% in 2019.
An example of a recent digital live streaming event is Tomorrowland’s December 2020 event with headliners such as Armin Van Buuren, David Guetta, Diplo, and Martin Garrix, among others. This event charged €20 (~$25) per ticket with approximately 1 million attendees estimated to have attendees, suggesting Tomorrowland brought in revenues of >$25 million.
In comparison, a Full Madness Pass (3-day pass base pass) to Tomorrowland’s traditional Belgium festival costs ~€300 (~$365). For the in-person event, Tomorrowland had roughly 200,000 attendees per weekend, implying ~$73 million in revenues from tickets alone. This means the virtual streaming event brought in 34% of the revenue compared to the in-person equivalent. So, while transitioning to a virtual platform may result in greater audience reach and accessibility (lower cost and fewer logistics for attendees), the decreased price point causes a significant revenue decline for the hosts. However, in combination with what we can imagine are reduced operating costs, it would be interesting to see the profit margin as a result of the transition to virtual. All costs and profit margins aside, it’s hard to put a price on replacing the in-person experience of concerts and live music events — a sentiment that is reverberating across the music community.
With many, including National Geographic, suggesting COVID-19 may be here to stay, or just become a milder virus, digital live events streaming might become a very real alternative to those that crave an immersive, yet safe experience.
To me, it does appear like we’re in the early innings of this sub-industry developing and becoming fully mainstream, making it an exciting and interesting trend to follow. See below for photos from Tomorrowland’s Dec 2020 48-hour digital festival — they appear surprisingly good, combining an assortment of CGI / fantasy elements with a life-like crowd experience.
Exciting opportunities around the corner | 2. Podcasts and education
If you hadn’t noticed, podcasts have become a thing. People have begun listening to podcasts during commutes, workouts, chores, or while getting ready in the morning. Podcasts are an activity that can easily entertain while multi-tasking or can be enjoyable as a standalone pastime.
On a separate note, in May 2020, Spotify agreed to pay Joe Rogan $100 million for his show and eventually the exclusive rights, indicating the increasing focus in audio towards podcasts.
In May 2019, Andreessen Horowitz published a piece “Investing in the Podcast Ecosystem in 2019” detailing growthy consumption trends, listener activity, and monetization opportunity. In particular, Andreessen Horowitz’s proposed a thesis on how to best create podcast content by focusing on broad audio content (rather than exclusives); leveraging network effects; creating high-quality, differentiated content; creating consumption experiences which enhance audio content (e.g. Headspace); and pursuing alternative monetization avenues outside of advertisements. Examples of startups being able to benefit from Horowitz’s thesis include vertical audio platforms (niche, focused apps in fitness or wellness), interactive audio (e.g. Clubhouse, group karaoke — a common feature in China already), or platforms that enable DTC podcasts, allowing creators to monetize their own content (rather than relying on a distributor like Spotify).
A few graphs depicting Podcasts’ historical and projected growth are as follows:
A few graphics showcasing the state of the Podcast landscape:
Podcasts in Education | Uses, methods, and effectiveness
An exciting area of opportunity where podcasts can develop in the future is education. Imagine if students could access all their prior lectures through an audio streaming platform as part of learning exercises. Podcasts can be effectively leveraged to improve learning retention, content exposure, and educational effectiveness within the education system.
Anya Logue from Podcast.co summarizes this well in her piece “The Why & How of Using Podcasts in Education,” but I’ll include highlights from two lists that she compiled below.
7 reasons to leverage podcasts in education:
1. Accessible in daily routines
2. Allows students to catch-up on missed classes
3. Listening may be a better medium than watching/reading given less need for more active engagement
4. Carved out time for separate active learning activities (e.g. listen to lecture prior to class and discuss questions during class)
5. Accommodates auditory learners
6. A great revisionist tool to review past material
7. Easy to make and cost-effective (easy to re-use)
5 ways to leverage podcasts or podcast methods in teaching:
1. Set podcasts for classes to watch and review together
2. Record lectures, repurposing them as podcasts themselves
3. As a teacher, record conversations with an acquaintance or subject matter expert. Studies have shown listeners are more engaged by dialogue than simple narration, making it a more effective learning tool.
4. Recast lectures as storytelling, incorporating characters and material as part of the narrative
5. Encouraging students to make their own podcasts
A study conducted by Chris Evans of Brunel Business School in London, UK, indicated that student are more receptive to learning material in the form of podcasts than a traditional lecture or textbook — see a snip from the front page of the study below. It also highlights the potential of podcasts as an innovative learning tool.
Specific opportunities | Select up-and-coming companies
Virtual live events streaming, podcasts, and education aside, to approach these trends from another lens, I looked at startups found through searches on Producthunt.com, Republic.co, and Angel.co in search of companies that would be able to benefit from exciting structural shifts in the music industry. To provide a more encompassing look at the startup ecosystem, the applications cited range in size from initial upstarts to unicorns.
A high-level explanation of select applications below:
Audiblogs: Founded by Eric Jung, also founder of Y Translator, a profitable NLP-based SaaS company, and Kyle Morris, a former engineer at Cruise and Harvard MBA candidate, Audiblogs is a free Chrome tool turning web pages into podcasts with an audiobook-like voice, allowing users to “read” pages while multi-tasking. Audiblogs was the #1 product of the day on Product Hunt on February 8, 2021 with 1,528 upvotes as of February 12, 2021.
Chartable: Founded by Dave Zohrob and Harish Agarwal, who previously worked together while at AngelList and while creating podcast Hacker Daily, Chartable provides podcast analytics and attribution. Publishers can better understand and grow their audiences, while advertisers are able to measure podcast effectiveness. The company serves over 1.1 billion downloads per month and services podcasters such as Wondery, Vox Media, and Pacific Content. In May 2019, Chartable raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Initialized Capital, Greycroft Partners, The Fund, and an AngelList syndicate, intending to fund an expansion suite of tools. They also announced the release of SmartLinks, an easily shareable, trackable URLs that automatically route listeners to an owner’s podcast in their favorite application. In September 2020, SmartLinks raised $2.25 million led by, again, Initialized Capital, Greycroft, The Fund, in addition to Weekend Fund, Jim Young, and a syndicate led by Lukas Biewald.
Clubhouse: Having blown up recently and been covered by most major news outlets, including the WSJ, Clubhouse is an audio-only social application featuring big names in media, politics, and technology. It provides a podcast-like feel to users, participating in live group chat rooms. Having raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation in January 2021 led by Andreessen Horowitz in its Series B funding. Deployment on monetization has yet to occur, with potential suggestions involving tipping, tickets, or subscription payments. With Mark Zuckerberg making an appearance on the application on February 5, 2021, Facebook is reportedly working on a copycat in the “early stages of development” while Twitter is working on a competitor, currently in beta, called Spaces.
Eventjoy: Y-Combinator backed Eventjoy is a more social, community-based way to experience live events, offering support for event ticketing, websites, apps, among others uses. Its beta period leading up to October 2013, saw the company (then known as EXMO) run 100 events including 14 startup weekends, hackathons, and conferences. It made money by charging $1 on each ticket, or 2% of a ticket price. In September 2014, Eventjoy was acquired by Ticketmaster.
Glisser LIVE: Launched by Glisser in 2018, LIVE is an engagement platform for virtual-hybrid events with an integrated audience response system and event analytics. Hybrid events combine both “in-person” with “virtual” components to events. Clients include Facebook, Uber, Informa, and Novartis. Within an event, attendees can move around, accessing on-demand content and entering virtual booths or breakout rooms, during which event hosts can track real-time engagement. In October 2016, Glisser raised $1 million in seeding funding led by London-based Downtown Ventures and the London Co-Investing Fund to expand into the U.S. Glisser was founded in 2014 by Michael Piddock, who previously worked at Octopus Investments, Vanco, and Lend Lease. As of February 12, there are 134 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt.
Hubhopper: Founded by Gautam Raj Anand in 2015 as a social network before pivoting to content aggregation and publishing in 2017, Hubhopper is India’s #1 leading free podcast distribution, creation, and hosting platform (AI-based SaaS). Hubhopper was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 company, while Gauntam won Entrepreneur magazine’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” award. The application includes social features, uses a “bite-sized” model to deliver real-time news in a concise manner, and provides a clean interface and recommendation engine. In July 2018, Hubhopper raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Mumbai-based Unit-E Ventures. According to Angel.co, Hubhopper has raised a total of $650,000 in funding and has previously participated in three angel rounds.
Livestack: Livestack is an application allowing creators to more easily monetize live events by hosting live streams. Integrable with Zoom, Livestack can handle all ticketing, payments, attendee reminders, and confirmations on a host’s behalf. In May 2020, Slow Ventures announced the launch of Livestack, with one of its co-founders being Facebook’s former VP of product management. The launch had been incubating and readying in wake of California quarantine restrictions, and as of February 12, there are 93 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt.
Nugget: Founded in September 2019 by Craig Cannon, Nugget is an online iOS application platform for short-form audio, allowing users to DJ their own audio station. Nugget pulls in audio from around the internet and allows users to layer in their own voice, in addition to leaving audio comments on friends’ posts. In March 2020, Elysium Venture Capital led $650,000 of seed funding, and Nugget was featured in Y-Combinator’s Demo Day, being described in TechCrunch as the “Instagram for audio” and having “the spontaneity of a snapshot applied to the medium of podcasting: most definitely an app for our times”. As of February 12, there are 62 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt.
Podz: An application auto-generating high volume clips of podcasts, touting as “first audio newsfeed”, Podz leverages machine-learning algorithms to identify the best 60-second highlights from podcast episodes, curating a personalized feed based on interest and prior listening history. For its launch, its included Katie Couric, former TV news host, Paris Hilton, influencer/entrepreneur, and Maria Schiavocampo, investigative journalist, as investors and advisors. CEO Doug Imbruce, explains Podz (prior to its sale to Yahoo in 2013) as making it easier to browse podcasts; Podz fills a niche in streamlining the discovery process. The common podcast listener usually listens to ~7 podcasts, but follows ~30 on Podz. So far, Podz raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding from M13, Canaan Companions, Cost Ventures, Humbition, among others. Ranked #175 on the Apple App Store, as of February 12, 2021, with a 4.9 rating from 32 ratings. As of February 12, there are 347 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt.
Roomvine: Used to interact with other people or businesses at the same venue as you, Roomvine provides chat rooms for real life venues, neighborhoods, and events without exposing user’s full identities. Founded in 2014 by ex-Mckinsey Senior Engagement Manager Sameer Noorani, Crunchbase mentions it is “playing for a $100 billion (annual) market”, introducing a digital layer for all physical locations. Examples of use cases include talking at a bar anonymously, discussing lectures with attendees, speaking to other diners about their experience, communicating in residential areas, fostering engagement between businesses and in-store customers, and interacting with conference attendees. As of February 12, there are 176 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt.
Run The World: Founded in Jul 2019 by Xiaoyin Qu and Xuan Jiang, Run The World, is not a Beyoncé hit, but a digital event platform designed to host events from cocktail parties to global conferences. In February 2020, it raised $4.3 million in seed funding backed largely by Andreessen Horowitz, but also GSR Ventures, Pear Ventures, 122 West Ventures, and Unanimous Capital. In May 2020, Run the World raised $10.8 million in Series A funding co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and new backer Founders Fund. Founder Qu says many event planners who would have used Zoom for webinars are choosing Run The World because of engagement and social features, such as video profiles (similar to Instagram stories) and “cocktail parties” — where it matches attendees for several minutes at a time. This women-led and -founded startup profits by taking 25% of sales for templates used, ticket sales, and payment processing with 300 million daily meeting participants as of April 2020. Growing “entirely organically from word of mouth”, Run The World has a 4.8 rating on the Apple App Store with 393 ratings, but only 62 upvotes on Product Hunt as of February 12.
Shortcut: Allowing live event attendees to skip live queues by ordering from their seat, Shortcut streamlines concessions at events, making it easy to get food delivered straight to where an attendee is sitting. Founded in 2013 by Buford Taylor and Richard Howard, Shortcut also provides a drop-in tablet POS for the venue and real-time data. In March 2014, Shortcut raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Techstars. In April 2014, they raised $100,000 in the form of a Convertible Note from Right Side Capital Management. As of February 12, there are 44 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt, where CTO Buford Taylor can be found answering questions. While certainly a nifty idea, Shortcut is slightly difficult to research given the ubiquity of the name.
Storyboard: Founded in Nov 2019, Storyboard is an enterprise podcast and audio platform, allowing users to distribute private podcasts, on-demand audio messages, among other tasks within an organization. In December 2020, it closed $4.5 million of seed funding led by CRV. Similar to podcasting, Storyboard enables creators, such as executives within a company, to record and launch on-demand audio content, accessible at any time to the company’s employees. In its first year of operations, >1,700 companies worldwide including Delta Air Lines, DHL, and HelloFresh launched channels on Storyboard. As of February 12, despite being a more commercial (rather than consumer) facing business, Storyboard has 171 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt.
Skole: Founded September 2019 as an education application for students to discover and discuss study materials, Skole creates student communities, allowing students to access course materials easily, see materials from prior courses, appear anonymously to contribute to discussions, and ask for help from other students. As of February 12, there are 21 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt where co-founder Markus Blomqvist can be found.
SZNPASS: Seemingly the “ClassPass/MoviePass of live events”, SZNPASS provides unlimited ticket subscriptions to live events. Initially led by founder and CEO Matthew Redler, it’s uncertain whether this startup still exists — given the lack of platform website and Matt himself no longer working at the company per his LinkedIn. Despite that, SZNPASS appears to be an interesting concept where for $59/month or $600/year, subscribers can attend a “theoretically unlimited number of South Florida concerts, sports games, musicals, and plays”. Matt appeared to have been inspired by MoviePass and was looking to take advantage of unsold seats at venue for better optimization. As of February 12, there are 92 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt where Matt was previously seen answering questions.
Wooclap: Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Belgium, Wooclap is a web-based application helping to boost interactivity during live events such as conferences, classes, or corporate meetings. >500,000 teachers currently engage with Wooclap, with institutions such as Singapore Management University, New York University, ESCP Europe, and Maastricht University leveraging the app. Attendees can uses multiple choice questions, ratings, polls, image finding, word cloud, open questions, number guessing, sorting, matching, and fill in the blanks, among other functionality to participate. In September 2017, Wooclap raised €350,000 in seed from Be Angels and W.IN.G. In Jan 2019, it raised €1,400,000 in Series A from Be Angels and W.IN.G. and then received a €500,000 grant in February 2019. As of February 12, there are 422 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt, where co-founder Sébastien Lebbe can be found.
Voices: Supposedly the #1 world marketplace for voice overs, Voices was founded in 2005 by David Ciccarelli and Stephanie Ciccarelli. Voices connects buyers of voice over with >500,000 voice actors, allowing customers to send auditions and receive estimated quotes for work. Jobs are free to post, and the site avoids the need for actors to find an agent. In February 2013, Voice raised CA$500,000 in debt funding; in October 2014, it raised CA$900,000 in debt funding; in Apr 2015, it raised $2 million in Series A funding from BDC Capital Corporation; and in Jul 2017, it raised $18 million from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital. As of February 12, there are 28 upvotes for the app on Product Hunt.
The Finale | My favorites
Chartable because of the exhilarating element to an up-and-coming analytics and attribution platform, particularly one tailored to podcasts. Who doesn’t like increasing yields and reaching optimal points?
Glisser LIVE, while seemingly a common idea (creating virtual and hybrid events), seems to have attracted the likes of Facebook and Uber as clients, which itself peaks my interest. Based on my surface level research, the digital live events streaming universe will be competitive, but it does look like it could be another winner-takes-all market that is in the earlier innings of its industry lifecycle.
Podz, the auto-generating 60-second podcast short-form audio “news feed”, to largely satisfy my own shorter attention span (I read too many book summaries to be proud of).
Livestack due to its apparent simplicity of allowing creators to quickly monetize live streams. As an anecdote, I picture a given creator about to go on Instagram Live but then deciding “why not kill two birds with one stone?” and monetizing the stream at the same time, with Livestack enabling that functionality.
Run The World, the digital event platform / Zoom-competitor, just because of its “cocktail party” feature peaking my interest and Series A backing by Andreessen Horowitz. Zoom, but more social has a certain ring to it.
I’d also throw in Clubhouse, but it looks to be fairly mainstream already.
… and that’s it. J’ai fini. If you made it here, congratulations! You certainly have more patience than I do while reading long-form articles. If any thoughts, I’ll be around in the comments section.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
Thank you to Maria and Tiffany for the heroic help in editing this piece
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