Audiodraft, a platform where brands or anybody else can commissions custom music or sounds, just closed $400,000 in a funding round led by 500 Startups and Promus Ventures.
The best analogy for what the startup does is 99Designs for sound. Founded three years ago, the company has grown a community of about 20,000 sound designers and music composers who are available to create music or sounds for different advertising agencies and clients on commission. There’s also a library on-hand tracks so that customers can drop by and buy licenses for music for anywhere from $400 to $2,000.
Then there’s also a way to host contests. (Here’s an example one from “Four Hour Work Week” author Tim Ferriss, who was looking for music to pair with a teaser video for the “Four Hour Chef.”) Audiodraft charges 10 percent of the prize money and a $99 listing fee.
With the round, the company is also bringing on a few advisors including Trulia co-founder Sami Inkinen and TaskRabbit vice president of engineering Yee Lee. They’ll use the funding to make a few additional hires in San Francisco and Helsinki and build out a new Agency Studios service. That product is really built for brand and advertising agencies globally that want to have more control over managing current productions and who they work with on the platform. That product will eventually cost $99 per month.
The company has grown to about 1,000 registered customers and the average amount they end up charging clientele is about $1,200 with $1,000 going toward the sound designer and the rest going to Audiodraft.
CEO Teemu Yli-Hollo, who is also a Finnish rapper, says that there are artists on the platform who are making enough money to pay for their living costs. The company’s now looking for a product manager, business manager and community manager in San Francisco and a product engineer in Helsinki.
