Songfinch investor Doja Cat. Photo Credit: Naz / CC by 3.0
Songfinch, a platform that enables fans to order personalized songs, raised over $2 million from investors including The Weeknd last summer. Now, the custom-music startup has officially closed its $5 million seed round.
Chicago-based Songfinch announced the multimillion-dollar raise’s wrap today, and Pinterest backer Corazon Capital (which is also headquartered in The Windy City) led the round. Besides The Weeknd’s aforementioned interest in Songfinch, the company has drawn financial support from Doja Cat (whose attorney and co-manager, Josh Kaplan, is a co-founder), Atlantic Records CEO Craig Kallman, and Quincy Jones, who celebrated his 89th birthday last month.
The list of investors in Songfinch (which has over 1,200 active musician users, according to execs) likewise includes Rob Price (CEO of music-education program School of Rock), David Kalt (founder of Reverb.com), and Michael Keiser (founder of American Greetings’ Recycled Paper Greetings). Additionally, Tinder CMO and Corazon partner Phil Schwarz has joined the board of Songfinch, which higher-ups said “has created nearly 100,000 personalized songs” to date.
Addressing the $5 million seed round’s completion in a statement, Songfinch co-founder and CEO John Williamson said: “We already know music is an incredible gift, and our customers tell us repeatedly how much they treasure their one-of-a-kind Songfinch songs.
“We also think that the expanse of Songfinch stretches far beyond gifting, and we’re excited to deliver on that in the months and years to come,” concluded the Music Audience Exchange advisor Williamson, whose company communicated that it’s “paid out more than $5 million to independent artists.”
On the latter front, Songfinch’s website specifies that the service’s “custom songs cost $199 USD and are delivered within 3-7 days from order confirmation.” Customers receive “a Personal Use license in perpetuity,” per the platform, and will be “totally fine” so long as they “are not making money” from the custom track at hand.
“Your artist retains 100% ownership of the master and composition of your song,” another section of Songfinch’s website emphasizes. The business accommodates personalized-music orders for companies, though the cost “depends on many factors including media, territory, use, the song request, and more.”
Lastly, regarding the operational and monetization specifics of Songfinch, customers have the option of purchasing “add-on” items including a $19.99 personalized photo slideshow (set to a custom track), a digital lyric print ($29.99), a 7” vinyl record featuring a custom song ($59.99), a DVD photo slideshow ($24.99), a CD ($24.99), and sheet music ($59.99).
Plus, a “metal QR plaque” ($49.99) features a photo and a QR code linking to a custom track, and Songfinch will upload a song to Apple Music and Spotify for a cool $49.99, its store shows.