Israeli digital music catalog company Artlist has raised $48 million in a financing round led by KKR and with the participation of previous investor Elephant Partners. The funds will be used to rapidly expand the company’s digital stock offerings to meet demand by a growing number of YouTubers and other content creators
Artlist provides high-quality, royalty-free licensed music, stock video clips, and sound effects for digital creative industries. The company builds and maintains a catalog of digital assets that creative industry producers can use on a subscription basis in videos, games and music without worrying about copyrights or other legal issues. Artlist also owns the website Artgrid, where content creators can access a large catalog of stock footage (video clips).
With the new investment, Artlist will serve the growing number of digital content creators producing an increasing amount of content. It is estimated that the average person will spend 100 minutes every day watching online videos in 2021, an increase of about 20% compared to daily viewing minutes in 2019.
Artlist, which has already licensed more than 20 million digital assets over the past 4 years, will quickly add tens of thousands of new and original stock digital assets to its platforms.
Artlist was founded in 2016 by co-CEOs Ira Belsky and Itzik Elbaz together with Assaf Ayalon and Eyal Raz. The company has offices in Kibbutz Afikim, where the founders come from, and Ra'anana and Tel Aviv. The company has 100 employees, 50 of them on Kibbutz Afikim in the Jordan Valley.
Belsky said, "The investment allows us to accelerate growth and product development, and quickly add new content that is aimed to be the top tier of digital stock in the world. The company will also look to expand into new adjacent categories both organically and via acquisitions. "We want to cater to all content creators with every type of digital asset they might need."
Elbaz added, "KKR’s tech and media expertise, networks, and relevant prior investments such as Fotolia and BMG Rights Management provide added value."
KKR's Patrick Devine said, "The growth of digital content creation - and the evolving way in which it is consumed - has generated a tremendous amount of opportunities for creators, but the process of licensing digital assets remains a significant challenge for small and large creators alike. What impresses us most about Artlist is the management team’s dedication to helping creators focus on what they do best and removing friction from the process of discovering and accessing content."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 29, 2020
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