Music industry funding turned in YoY growth in November 2024 despite a significant falloff in the cumulative value of YTD raises. Photo Credit: Vladimir Solomianyi
Building on October’s growth, core music industry funding increased by double digits during November 2024. Nevertheless, the cumulative value of YTD raises remains well beneath its 2023 counterpart.
These and other worthwhile insights come from DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker, a one-stop database compiling rounds from in and directly around the industry. Running with the information provided by that searchable and filterable resource, the music space recorded five raises in November 2024 – the same number delivered by the prior-year month.
Unlike November 2023, however, November 2024’s rounds, the largest being Trolley’s $23 million Series B and the smallest being Conduction’s $250,000 in pre-seed capital, didn’t benefit from a $50 million AI raise.
Subtracting that sizable industry-adjacent tranche (secured by Stability AI) from the total leaves November 2023 with $36.80 million. By contrast, core music industry funding came in at $46.60 million for November 2024, representing a close to 27% YoY spike.
(There isn’t a one-size-fits-all way to distinguish between “core” and “industry-adjacent,” but there are several ways to analyze the numbers at hand. While not currently targeting the industry, PlayAI is working to replicate human voices, and as that objective strikes close to the music sphere, the startup’s $21 million seed round is included in the core category here.)
Notwithstanding the improvement – and in one of the many granular takeaways that would have gone unnoticed without the Funding Tracker – the average core industry round size was nearly identical across November 2023 ($9.2 million) and 2024 ($9.3 million).
Heading into this year’s final weeks and particularly 2025, it remains to be seen whether recent months’ industry funding growth is indicative of a broader trend.
As things stand, raises announced between January and November 2024 brought about $3.21 billion in disclosed capital – roughly 68% beneath the 2023 period’s $10.08 billion.
With that said, the 2023 window delivered considerable industry-adjacent funding, to the tune of at least $4.2 billion pulled down by AI giants and $200 million for Diplo-backed Torch Capital (which doesn’t limit its investments to the industry), to name a couple.
Even when omitting non-core capital, though, music industry funding still suffered an almost 35% YoY slip during the nearly year-long window in 2024, with a raise-volume falloff to boot, the data shows.
Also worth reiterating are the massive funding contributions of a few companies across January and November 2024. Concord’s $850 million ABS and Iconic Artists Group’s $1 billion in capital alone made up just shy of 58% of total industry funding throughout the 11-month stretch.
That share increases further yet when factoring for Create Music Group’s $165 million strategic round and TickPick’s gargantuan $250 million growth investment, for instance.
There’s no telling exactly which developments are on the horizon, but logic and evidence suggest that the decidedly red-hot ticketing arena is due for something of a funding cooldown owing to 2024’s capital injections as well as broader market trends.
Similarly, the above-mentioned catalog investors and others, despite aggressively pursuing a number of deals, appear well-situated on the funding front for the foreseeable future.