Legendary Aussie music name backs Muso app in $1.5M seed round

What does a 134-year-old Australian music company and an online marketplace app have in common? They both clearly want to see local music thrive.

Muso, which helps emerging musicians find live gigs, and help venues host new acts, has raised $1.5 million in its latest seed funding round.

The large investment has come from angel investor group Investible, Unified Music Group, a few angel investors, and Alberts Impact Capital, the new venture capital and private equity firm from legendary music company Alberts.

Side note: BMG Australia acquired Alberts in 2016 to include administration of the AC/DC, Vanda, Wright and Young catalogues.

Alberts Impact Capital marks a new era for the fifth generation business

Alberts Impact Capital was launched this year by the latest generation of the Alberts family – David, Ingrid, Emily and Kirsty Albert – to co-exist with the Alberts production side.

The early-stage fund aims to invest in Australian pioneers who are “working to create a positive impact in the world.” It invests from pre-seed to series A and partners for the long term.

It has four main focuses: arts, music and entertainment; environmental sustainability; mental health and wellbeing; and women’s sport.

Fifth generation Alberts

David Albert praised Muso’s founders, who have created 1800 new gigs since launch last year, with 900 gigs booked and 750 gigs already played.

“The investment reflects Alberts heritage, its long association with the music industry and ongoing support of pioneers passionate about live music,” Albert said.

Jeremiah Siemianow, Muso’s CEO added:

“Many venues struggle to find musicians and DJs, while musicians end up wasting time and energy securing gigs and chasing payments,” he said.

“Live music is hard to organise, especially if you’re not networked or if you’re time-poor. Because of this, we realised there was a massive lost opportunity for local live music.

“We found that if we made live music easier to organise, more venues would begin hosting it, in turn creating more opportunities for musicians.”

Muso co-founders Alan-Jin, Brandon Crimmins and Jeremiah Siemianow

Investible’s chief investment officer Hugh Bickerstaff said:

“Building a two-sided marketplace is never easy. Jeremiah, Alan and Brandon have identified a significant opportunity to improve the way artists and venues connect and work together,” he said.

“We are already seeing early signs of virality with artists organically signing up and venues onboarding themselves in the quest to find new talent.”

Muso was selected for the Sydney-based Startmate accelerator in January 2019 and in September was included at the BIGTECH showcase at BIGSOUND.

Muso can be downloaded on the App Store and Google Play, or  visit musoapp.com.au.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.