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Epidemic Sound

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Global royalty-free soundtrack company
Epidemic Sound AB
Company typePrivate
IndustryMusic
FoundedJune 18, 2009; 15 years ago (2009-06-18)
FoundersPeer Åström
David Stenmarck
Oscar Höglund
Jan Zachrisson
Hjalmar Winbladh
HeadquartersStockholm, Sweden
Revenue78,496,922 Euro (2021) Edit this on Wikidata
Number of employees439 (2021) Edit this on Wikidata
ParentEQT Partners (2017)
Websiteepidemicsound.com
Footnotes / references

Epidemic Sound is a global royalty-free soundtrack providing company based in Stockholm, Sweden.

The company was established in 2009 by Peer Åström, David Stenmarck, Oscar Höglund, Hjalmar Winbladh and Jan Zachrisson.

It has a library of over 40,000 soundtrack music and 90,000 sound effects. All Epidemic Sound tracks come in stems, which lets users remove certain layers of a track, like drums, bass, or the melody. Epidemic Sound music is also played in public spaces like restaurants, hotels, shopping malls and car parks. Epidemic Sound’s tracks are produced by a roster of music creators who get paid upfront for each track and half of the track’s streaming revenue.

Epidemic Sound has partnered with many different major brands, including Adobe, Getty Images, iStock, Pinterest, and Canva. The company has raised a total of over $500M in funding over 5 rounds. Their latest equity round raised $450M from Blackstone Group and EQT Growth, which values Epidemic Sound at $1.4 billion. Both SVT and TV4 buy music from Epidemic Sound.

Reporting in the January 2025 edition of Harper's Magazine revealed a secretive arrangement between Epidemic and Spotify. Under the program, titled "Perfect Fit Content", Spotify fills its background music playlists with content from Epidemic and other stock-audio companies. To produce the tracks, Epidemic and others hire independent artists to create an agreed-upon number of tracks at a rapid rate that draw "inspiration" from a given playlist. Spotify pays royalties to these stock music companies, which is then shared with the artists, typically in a way that is more favourable to artists and composers compared to traditional music labels.

References

  1. "Företagsinformation, Epidemic Sound". hitta.se (in Swedish). 2009-04-23. Archived from the original on 28 December 2023. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
  2. ^ Bradshaw, Tim (2019-07-04). "London in for wild ride as Ola takes on Uber". Financial Times.
  3. "Epidemic Sound Said to Consider Options for Online Music Vault". Bloomberg. November 17, 2020 – via www.bloomberg.com.
  4. "Epidemic Sound wants to soundtrack the world". Sifted. 2019-07-01. Retrieved 2021-05-25.
  5. "Check out Epidemic Sound US on Inc.com!". Inc.com.
  6. Soderpalm, Helena (December 6, 2019). "Swedish start-up Epidemic Sound tunes into demand for original music". Reuters – via www.reuters.com.
  7. "Epidemic Sound raises $450M at a $1.4B valuation to 'soundtrack the internet'". Techcrunch. 2021-03-11.
  8. Grahn, Sindra; Josborg, Louise (2012-09-17). ""Rättigheterna är borta för alltid"". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-09-08.
  9. Farran-Lee, Lydia (2012-10-04). "Avtal missgynnar kompositörer". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-09-08.
  10. "The Ghosts in the Machine, by Liz Pelly". Harper's Magazine. Archived from the original on 2024-12-20. Retrieved 2024-12-20.


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