South Korean music investment firm Beyond Music has added $170 million to its war chest for buying rights to evergreen Asian music.
The company, which was founded in 2021, says its latest round of funding brings Beyond Music’s total capital raised to nearly $400 million. It will use the new capital to further grow its music catalog, which currently numbers more than 27,000 songs, the company said.
Beyond Music was launched in early 2021 by hit songwriter Park Geun-tae and entrepreneur Jang-won Lee, known for founding Mafia Company, a digital music platform for Asian music scores. Lee serves as the company’s CEO.
In April 2021, Beyond Music closed a round of funding worth 65 billion South Korean Won (approximately $50 million) from Korean institutional investors, including KB Securities, Base Investment and Maven Growth Partners. Another 200 billion won ($160 million) round followed in December 2021, led by private equity firm Praxis Capital.
Praxis Capital again leads the new $170 million round, followed by “some of the biggest LPs in Asia,” according to Beyond Music.
“Known for a successful track record in the content industry, Praxis Capital brings not only capital to the table, but ‘smart capital’ that delivers insight and a shared vision,” Lee said in a statement. “Home to all-time hits on par with Asia’s Bon Jovis, Led Zepplins and Whitney Houstons, Beyond Music has already established itself as the market leader in the region with the deepest pockets, quantitative disciplines and proven record value. Through this investment, we hope to continue our goal of serving Asia’s most respected artists and their works.”
Beyond Music describes its model as “buy and build,”—acquiring large-scale, high-quality music catalogs and revitalizing those songs through “proactive value-adding strategies such as remakes, performance marketing, and industry partnerships.”
