Music licensing marketplace Hoopr raises $1.5M in funding led by 9Unicorns, others

Mumbai-based music licensing marketplace Hoopr, an online platform that allows video creators and businesses to license royalty-free music, has raised $1.5 million or Rs 11.3 crore in a seed funding round led by 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts. The round also saw participation from Gurugram-based Inflection Point Ventures and 91Ventures.

Marquee angel investors, including Ashneer Grover (BharatPe), Anshoo Sharma (Magicpin), Sahil Barua (Delhivery), Giri Malpani, Anuraag Srivastava (Rainshine Entertainment), and Pradyumna Agrawal (Temasek), also participated in the round.

The announcement comes at a time when the digital creator economy is experiencing meteoric growth across the world and especially in India. With a market size estimated to be $104 billion, over 50 million creators globally are creating content daily. Starting with sync licensing, a $3.7 Billion market worldwide, Hoopr plans to monetize various aspects of the creator economy, with a focus on local Indian creators.

Founded in 2021, Hoopr is a part of the parent firm GSharp Media - a music-tech company started by IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus Gaurav Dagaonkar and serial entrepreneur Meghna Mittal (ex- Hubilo, Yesssworks).

The parent company works on building media-tech products and plans to grow its IP offerings with the expansion of its content arm ‘Songfest’, which counts brands such as Mars Wrigley, Nestle, BharatPe, Hike, and Magicpin amongst its clients.

According to a statement, Hoopr will use the raised funding to strengthen its technology, including an AI-enabled search engine for video creators, to find the right soundtracks. The startup will also focus on building its library.

With the launch of its new platform, Hoopr is aiming to bring a revolution in the music industry by opening a new way of monetization for the music creators as well and democratizing the space by bringing the buyers on one platform.

Through Hoopr, an independent artiste can now be discovered at a global level, the startup said in a statement.

Speaking on the development, Gaurav Dagaonkar, Co-founder & CEO of Hoopr, said: "At GSharp Media we believe in creating data and technology driven products and brands that help creators. We will continue to invest in growing our library and building features on the Hoopr platform across the next 12 months. For me personally, the fact that Hoopr provides millions of music creators a new source of income is a very satisfying feeling.”

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder of 9Unicorns & Venture Catalysts said: “Content creators, social media community builders, and curators have been some of the exceptions that have witnessed additional growth fueled by the pandemic."

"Work-From-Home has enabled a lot of fence-sitters to join the creators’ bandwagon and generate a primary/secondary source of income. Given this backdrop, we envisage immense potential for Hoopr due to its royalty-free model which reaches the grassroots level of the creator economy in India," Apoorva added.

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