Semetric, the global data analytics firm behind Musicmetric, has secured significant new financing from two key backers.
The GBP3m (USD4.7m) investment comes from Imperial Innovations Group, the AIM-listed technology investment firm, and existing investor Pentech Ventures, a venture capital fund specialising in software investments.
It follows previous investments totalling GBP1.7m (USD2.7m.
The new investment will support Semetric’s global plans to expand over the coming year while further developing its entertainment analytics products. The current global market for media analytics totals around USD3bn annually.
Musicmetric is the a digital music analytics platform, working with record labels, managers, radio stations and music marketers to benchmark and compare artist performance in real time.
In October, Musicmetric published the Digital Music Index, an in-depth report on the digital music landscape. Linked to this, together with the BBC, it jointly developed a widely-acclaimed app enabling fans to find the artist with the highest BitTorrent downloads locally by UK postal areas. The value of aggregating BitTorrent data in such detail – alongside social media trends and sentiment – is that it allows for a far greater understanding of how and where music is being consumed.
Based in London and Los Angeles, Musicmetric already works on both sides of the Atlantic with all major record labels and leading media outlets, such as EMI, MTV and the Guardian.
The firm is also working with NME magazine to develop real-time analytics for the forthcoming NME Awards in London next month and will be launching a white paper at MIDEM in conjunction with the event’s organisers.
Jon Edington of Imperial Innovations will become a non-executive director of Semetric, joining Gregory Mead, Marc Moens and Jeremy Silver on the board.
Mead says: “The ability to analyse complex data in real time is becoming essential across business. As the entertainment sector continues its shift towards the digital sphere, understanding consumer trends, what drives revenues and being able to benchmark real time performance will become vital. This new investment will allow us to firmly establish Semetric across Europe and America.”
Marc Moens of Pentech Ventures says: “Our focus has always been on smart, passionate entrepreneurs developing innovative tech businesses that offer real long-term value to investors. Semetric has made real progress over the last two years and we have been impressed by the development of Musicmetric, which has become the world’s leading music analytics platform. We’re excited by what’s set to come and believe there is a real long term opportunity in offering this kind of analytics across the entertainment industry.”
Jon Edington of Imperial Innovations says: “I’m excited to be joining the board of Semetric. The company’s data asset and its powerful processing capabilities are a model for big data companies. The depth of insight the accumulated data is capable of powering is very valuable as are the many other applications to which the data can be applied.”
