Swedish music company X5 Music has secured a 7 million Euro investment from Northzone Ventures, which also happens to the be the lead investor in that other Scandinavian music startup you’ve probably heard of, Spotify.
X5 Music is a digital record label operating largely in Europe. It plans to use the funding to sign American artists and to increase X5 Music´s current catalogue. This USA expansion makes them the first Swedish “record label” in 50 years to do so. It will also be opening up a new office in New York at the beginning of 2011 and investing in music catalogues. It’s business plan is to be the “best alternative for major American artists” says Johan Lagerlöf CEO at X5 Music.
It’s kind’ve odd to see a VC invest in a record label but Torleif Ahlsand, general partner in Northzone Ventures says that, via X5, Northzone is getting a deeper involvement into the value chain within the digital music area, a market they believe has lots of growth potential. The investment in catalogues – which have a lot of potential for the future, is key to that.
Last year X5 Music had over 10 albums on the American Billboard chart, although it only distributes digitally and is based in Stockholm.