‘Spotify For B2B’ Has Big Funding Day

A startup described as “Spotify for B2B” secured $22 million in a venture capital funding round announced Friday (Feb. 17).

The company, Soundtrack Your Brand, was launched by a former Spotify executive and a cofounder of Beats, now owned by Apple. Based in Sweden, Soundtrack Your Brand allows businesses to create playlists to play in their store and retail locations. The $22 million raised will be used to continue expansion of the solution, reports said.

The company also operates Spotify Business across Sweden, Norway and Finland, reports said.

Balderton Capital and Industrifonden participated in the latest funding round, which brings the total raised by Soundtrack Your Brand to $40 million, reports said. The Series C round also saw participation from Telia, Creandum, HMP (the family investment fund of H&M) and others. Spotify is also an investor in the company, though didn’t participate in this round.

According to reports, if businesses use a streaming service like Spotify to play to their entire retail locations, they are probably breaking a law because Spotify is licensed for non-commercial use only. Traditionally, businesses will have to create their own mixes or bring their own CDs, which frequently have to be changed and updated.

“Last year, we played 200,000 unique tracks on our service, and our competitors played roughly the same amount,” said Founder Andreas Liffgarden in an interview with TechCrunch. The firm’s top competitors include Mood Media and Play Network, among others.

With the new funds, Soundtrack Your Brand also plans to work directly with music labels to directly license music.