Music industry funding grew year over year in January 2025, but fell short of January 2023’s total. Photo Credit: Giorgio Trovato
Thanks in large part to another sizable contribution from the catalog sub-sector, music industry funding rose considerably during January 2025.
That valuable finding and other important takeaways are made possible by DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker. The one-stop resource compiles raises (including those, like the $25 million Series B secured by retail audio company Qsic last month, that fly under the media radar) from in and around the industry.
Previously, the all-encompassing database pointed to nearly $5 billion in core 2024 music industry funding – with a substantial portion of the tranche attributable to catalog-focused businesses.
Catalog Factored Heavily Into January 2025 Music Industry Funding
The trend didn’t let up during January 2025, when core music industry funding (excluding another $1 billion round for Anthropic and, though a bit closer to the industry proper, Triller’s $50 million equity raise) came in at $425.91 million.
This sum is about eight times larger than its 2024 counterpart ($51.96 million) and represents an average of $106.48 million per round. But almost 85% of the January 2025 funding total derived from Influence Media Partners’ $360 million ABS, which was by far the month’s biggest core raise.
Even when omitting the ABS – which, like every huge securitization, probably won’t receive a follow up for some time – January 2025 delivered 26.8% more core funding ($65.91 million) than January 2024.
Despite the YoY Boost, January 2025 Music Industry Funding Was Beneath the January 2023 Sum
Notwithstanding January 2025’s YoY funding growth, however, the month failed to top January 2023’s cumulative $1.09 billion in raises. While sizable, the older figure would have been greater yet if Premier Music Group had attached a dollar amount to its publicly disclosed round.
In any event, January 2023 funding resulted from five rounds, the biggest being Kakao Entertainment’s nearly $1 billion private equity raise, followed by a $100 million share subscription facility for Events.com.
Is Funding History Bound to Repeat Itself? Similarities Emerge Across January 2023, 2024, and 2025
Besides ensuring that startups don’t fall through the media cracks (keeping tabs on each industry company would otherwise be a tall task) and enabling the illustration of useful YoY trends, the Tracker allows for bigger-picture takeaways.
For instance, January 2023, 2024, and 2025 alike brought between five and six industry and industry-adjacent rounds apiece.
In each of those three Januarys, one industry round was worth less than $1 million. And contrasting the many massive non-equity or -ABS raises ushered in between 2020 and 2022, all January 2023-25 seed, Series A, and Series B rounds were valued at no more than $40 million apiece, with an average of roughly $11.2 million.