Global music technology platform Orfium has acquired London-based Soundmouse, which specialises in music reporting and audio recognition services.
Founded by Kirk Zavieh and Charles Hodgkinson in 2000, Soundmouse connects broadcasters, programme makers, collecting societies, distributors, labels, publishers and music creators. It has a team of almost 400 with offices in London, Bulgaria, Seoul, Sri Lanka, Taipei and Tokyo.
Rob Wells (pictured), Orfium CEO and former Universal Music Group president of global digital, 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.”
With a global team of more than 300, Orfium provides software, data and licensing solutions to the entertainment industry with offices in Malibu, Athens, London and Tokyo.
Orfium works with record labels, music publishers, production music companies and collecting societies to track and monetise music use at a time when there’s a proliferation of new channels and platforms, as well as the growth of the metaverse and Web3.
Wells added: “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. 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.”
Orfium was founded in 2015 in Los Angeles by Drew Delis and Chris Mohoney. Rob Wells joined the tech and music rights management business in 2017.
Soundmouse co-CEO Charles Hodgkinson, said: “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.”
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