Music tech startup Orfium acquires music reporting and audio recognition company Soundmouse – Music Business Worldwide

Los Angeles-based music tech startup Orfium has acquired Soundmouse, a London-based media technology company that specializes in music cue sheet reporting and audio recognition services.

Soundmouse is a music reporting platform used by broadcasters and other media companies, including British broadcaster the BBC.

The company also works with collection societies.

Orfium was founded in 2015 in Los Angeles by Drew Delis and Chris Mohoney, with the goal, according to the company, of “bringing cutting-edge technology to the music rights management space”.

CEO Rob Wells, the former global digital head of Universal Music Group, joined the business in 2017.

The company also has offices in Athens, London and Tokyo, with a global team of 300-plus.

Orfium says that its technology has generated “hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue” for its partners, which it says includes “top global record labels and music publishers”.

This news marks the latest acquisition for Orfium.

In April last year, the company acquired Breaker INC, a Tokyo-based promotional, marketing and content company, which became ORFIUM Japan.

Rob Wells, Orfium CEO, said: “Bringing Soundmouse into the Orfium family, we are moving to a place where we can serve the entire entertainment ecosystem across mainstream and digital media.

“By connecting creators, rights holders, and music users, we can deliver more value to stakeholders across the board.”

“Making music easier to find, use, track and monetise across all channels is one of the core problems we’re helping to solve for the industry.”

Rob Wells, Orfium

Added Wells: “Making music easier to find, use, track and monetize across all channels is one of the core problems we’re helping to solve for the industry.

“Our software, built on advances in machine learning and AI, empowers rights owners, creators and key stakeholders to realise more value as new platforms for media consumption emerge and scale.

“There is no other company in this space building and investing in technology like Orfium. Acquiring Soundmouse enables us to scale our product offering and expand deeper into the complex infrastructure of the entertainment industry, streamlining content creation and management for programme makers, broadcasters and music rights holders.”

“There is a huge amount of synergy between our companies which will allow us to deliver even more benefits to creators, rights holders, broadcasters and collecting societies with cutting edge technology and industry expertise.”

Charles Hodgkinson, Soundmouse

Soundmouse Co-CEO, Charles Hodgkinson, added: “Over the past 20 years, Soundmouse has been building and setting the standard in cue sheet management and monitoring for the broadcast and entertainment production space.

“Combine that with Orfium’s expertise in UGC tracking and claiming for publishers, labels and production music companies and we bring the worlds of digital and broadcast together in an integrated way.

“There is a huge amount of synergy between our companies which will allow us to deliver even more benefits to creators, rights holders, broadcasters and collecting societies with cutting edge technology and industry expertise.”Music Business Worldwide