Series A Led by Buttonwood Group Advisors will enhance growth strategy and platform development efforts
NEW YORK, July 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Stationhead, the social music platform for artists and fans around the world to connect, listen live, and stream together, announced today the closing of a $12 million Series A financing round led by Buttonwood Group Advisors (“BGA”) and other industry-leading investors, including global DJ, songwriter and music producer, Thomas Wesley Pentz Jr., popularly known as Diplo, among others.
Through former rock star turned tech entrepreneur Ryan Star’s leadership since launching out of beta in 2021, Stationhead has evolved music streaming to create an interactive and communal listening experience for its 5 million users with 30k stations across 200 countries. Music lovers turned station hosts can play their favorite albums and choose from more than 70 million songs without copyright restriction due to an integration with Apple Music and Spotify. Stationhead connects fans and artists in an unprecedented manner with singular live streams exceeding 600k people and all users averaging over 2 hours per day on the platform. Users can also seamlessly integrate music and chatting with Stationhead’s functionality to take live-calls or co-host shows with other members.
Stationhead is now an integral part of the largest music releases in the world. Artists who have officially launched stations resulting in global listening parties that drive Billboard charts include BTS, Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, Shawn Mendes, Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Camila Cabello, Olivia Rodrigo, Machine Gun Kelly, Bruno Mars, Brandi Carlisle, and many more.
“Stationhead is the next evolution of music online. By building this with great empathy for artists and fans alike we have grown to become the preferred global platform of the new generation to consume music together. On release week, we are the heart of the action. The completion of this raise signifies Stationhead’s growing & pivotal role in the entire music ecosystem,” said CEO and Co-Founder of Stationhead, Ryan Star.
To further innovate the digital music experience and bring value to both artists, fans, and the music industry, Stationhead will use the capital to accelerate the scale of its global platform, and invest in engineering and user experience.
Joseph A. Alagna, Chairman & CEO of Joseph Gunnar & Co., and Founder & Co-Manager of Buttonwood Group Advisors, added: “Stationhead has gained significant traction with its unique social streaming platform which has been quickly adopted by both listeners and artists. We look forward to the company’s continued growth and innovation as a business”
Additional investors include Red Light Management, TMWRK, Round Hill Publishing, Avex Entertainment, Craig Kallman and Julie Greenwald of Atlantic Records, Kevin Liles of 300 Entertainment, and Jason Flom of Lava Records.
“Stationhead has become an integral part of music releases, adding a brand new way for fans and artists alike to celebrate new releases together on a global scale all while driving music up the charts,” said Murray Levison, Stationhead Co-Founder & COO, “Artists like BTS, Cardi B, NBA YoungBoy, & Stray Kids have successfully used Stationhead to create amazing experiences with their fans and drive their music to #1. These incomparable artist-fan encounters have transpired organically and reflect the unique value that Stationhead offers.”
Additionally, Stationhead announced the hiring of Andrew Cornett, as Principal Product Designer, to oversee the design and engineering of new technology and products for Stationhead with the aim of creating a superior user experience for the company’s millions of listeners.
Cornett joins Stationhead with over ten years of experience in product design and engineering. Prior to this, Andrew was Product Designer for HEIR, digital platform to connect athletes with fans, Product Design Director at music software company Splice, and iOS Engineer for Universe Inc, a website building app. He also worked at Kickstarter, designing the company’s first iPhone app and Co-Founded Jukely, a monthly concert subscription app.
Andrew’s initial work will be focused on engagement and discovery tools like Channels. The new ‘Channels’ feature which acts as a community hub for artists and fans and highlights the top performing stations on the platform. The inaugural ‘Channels’ features artists who have used Stationhead to engage directly with fans including, BTS – Army, Seventeen – CARAT, Nicki Minaj – Barbz. The BTS Channel hosted over 600,000 fans in one day, making BTS’ channel the largest social audio channel in the world.
Stationhead is a social music platform for artists and fans around the world to connect, listen live, and stream together. Stationhead allows its users to create global stations in seconds where they can stream music, talk live, and connect with their community around the world. Stationhead’s patented technology enables fans and artists to create unforgettable digital music experiences, all while driving songs up the charts. Artists to launch stations on Stationhead include BTS, Imagine Dragons, & Cardi B, among others. Assemble, listen, connect, party, talk, and play – on Stationhead. Stationhead is available in the iOS and Google Play app stores as well as on the Web. Visit www.stationhead.com for more information.
Joseph Gunnar & Co., is a full-service investment banking, securities and wealth management firm, established in 1997 and headquartered in New York. The Firm provides a variety of investment banking and advisory services to emerging and micro-cap companies, as well as a full array of financial services including private wealth management, global institutional equity, and fixed-income sales & trading, and equity research. Joseph Gunnar is a registered broker-dealer with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is a member of FINRA, SIPC, and NASDAQ. To learn more about Joseph Gunnar, visit josephgunnar.com.
Buttonwood Group Advisors LLC offers investment advisory services to a group of private investment funds (the “Buttonwood Funds” or the “Fund”) that provide individual and institutional investors access to fast-growing, globally disruptive, pre-IPO companies, as well as to opportunistic real estate transactions, for which it seeks a shorter period to liquidity than most traditional private equity funds.
Buttonwood’s investment structure allows investors to purchase membership interests with the opportunity to receive company shares post-IPO. Investment in each Fund series is specific to a single company at a specific valuation, rather than an investment in a blind pool or blended fund, which over time gives investors and their advisors the ability to build a custom portfolio of private equity.
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SOURCE Stationhead
