Rights-Management and Royalty-Accounting Platform Synchtank Announces $5.8 Million Series A
Rights-management and royalty-accounting software developer Synchtank has completed a $5.8 million Series A. Photo Credit: Zan
Music and entertainment rights-management and royalty-accounting platform Synchtank has announced the completion of a $5.8 million Series A.
London-headquartered Synchtank, which raised $650,000 in seed funding around the time of its 2011 debut, unveiled the multimillion-dollar Series A via a formal release that was emailed to DMN. Octopus Ventures (which is also based in London) led the $5.8 million round, with support “from existing management and shareholders.”
Plus, 2020 saw Synchtank – which counts as clients Warner Music Group, the NFL, and “the majority of Hollywood studios” – receive $750,000 in seed capital “from management, shareholders, and Juno Capital Partners,” for a total of approximately $6.6 million raised during the past year. Additionally, higher-ups said that Octopus Ventures’ investment “marks the start of an ongoing financial partnership.”
The decade-old Synchtank intends to use this latest windfall “to strengthen its team, improve and expand upon existing services and features, and grow its customer footprint beyond North America and Europe,” according to the text, besides “rapidly” broadening existing “rollout plans.”
Moreover, Synchtank, which offers cloud-based data storage and “automated metadata tagging,” to name some of several features, dedicates a substantial portion of the announcement message to highlighting the idea that the value of music IP has “skyrocketed,” with “billions of dollars pouring into blockbuster deals each month.”
“But while this new ecosystem is set to propel revenues to record heights,” maintains Synchtank, “it has also created unprecedented challenges for those tasked with managing the underlying rights and making sense of an explosion of data coming in from endless distribution channels.”
Addressing his company’s raise in a statement, Synchtank CEO (and NPR Technology consultant) Rory Bernard said in part: “We have come a long way as a company with phenomenal progress in the last two years taking the company far beyond its original sync-based business.
“We are excited to be working with Octopus with their focus and commitment on a long-term strategy in the company, funding not only this current round but also building further finance rounds as music, media and broadcast growth continues to explode, presenting a wealth of opportunities,” finished the head of Synchtank, which says that it “is seeing increasing demand” for features on both the music and media sides.
Though many billions of dollars have reached the music-IP space since 2020’s beginning, the sales boom – as well as the massive sums that catalogs are fetching – is showing few signs of slowing down.
October and November of 2021 alone have brought deals involving the work of Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro, veteran songwriter-producer Dallas Austin, Never Too Much creator Luther Vandross, and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” songwriter Gerry Goffin, to name some.
Meanwhile, the David Bowie estate, Bruce Springsteen, and Sting are reportedly negotiating catalog sales of their own, with a cumulative value (based upon estimates; the agreements haven’t been finalized) of well over $500 million.
