Music Audience Exchange (MAX) today announced it has secured $6 million in a funding round led by MATH Venture Partners and KDWC Ventures. G-Bar Ventures and Gregg Latterman, Founder and CEO of Aware Records, also contributed to the raise.
'We're redefining the role that brands play in the music industry,' said MAX Founder and CEO, Nathan Hanks. 'The new funds will help us accelerate adoption of our platform, which is bringing much-needed data and structure to the intersection of music and brand marketing. We're aligning brands, their agency partners, and artists and empowering them to connect deeply with audiences through music.'
MAX's consumer marketing platform is built on proprietary data science that weaves together over 2.4 million artists (from mainstream stars to great talents looking for that big break), across 765 genres with over 200 consumer attributes to make the perfect brand-artist matches. The platform then distributes authentic, brand-infused content everywhere consumers engage with music.
Dr Pepper and Jack Daniel's were among the first brands leveraging the MAX Platform™ for partnerships with artists including NEEDTOBREATHE, Leela James, Aaron Watson, and 2017 Grammy Nominee La Maquinaria Norteña. In the last two years, MAX has expanded with programs for top agencies and category-leading brands across automotive, food, beverage, and consumer services.
Given its capabilities to target highly specific consumer segments, the MAX Platform has already powered over 40 campaigns for Ford regional dealer groups in multiple English and Spanish music genres. Early successes have led to expansion into new markets and consumer segments across the U.S.
Other major brands and agencies have shared similar success stories with MAX. The national 'Summer Out Loud' campaign for Twix with pop-punk headliner, Mayday Parade, led to a significant increase in product sales across a national footprint of stores, and tens of thousands of fan entries to win a chance to meet the band.
'MAX has moved from a new marketing category innovator to dominant marketing company contender status quickly. The constant stream of brand, artist, and consumer wins led to our investment interest,' said Troy Henikoff, Managing Director at MATH Venture Partners. 'What MAX is doing is entirely new and extremely valuable.'
MAX was founded in 2014 by Nathan Hanks, who saw the challenges artists face in promoting their careers while growing up in a family of working musicians. At MAX, Hanks is applying the lessons he learned having spent ten years immersed in digital marketing as Cofounder and President of ReachLocal, which he helped grow to 24,000 clients across 15 countries and over $500M in annual revenue. Company cofounders include music industry veteran, George Howard, who is the former President of indie label Rykodisc, a copyright and music licensing expert, and an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music and Brown University. The cofounding team also includes members of Hanks' previous team with backgrounds in brand marketing, advertising, data science, and technology.
Joining the MAX Board of Directors are: Lon Chow (Partner at KDWC Ventures) and David Carlick (Independent Director and former Chairman of the Board at ReachLocal, Inc.).
To learn more about MAX, visit: http://www.musicaudienceexchange.com/. SXSW Festival badge holders can listen to and meet MAX cofounders Hanks and Howard on March 15 at 3:30 PM during a panel entitled 'The New Deal: Why Brands Will Buy Artists' Airtime.' Howard will moderate the session, which will address how the music industry will experience the liberating forces currently imposing innovation on the cab and hotel industries.
About Music Audience Exchange (MAX)
Music Audience Exchange (MAX) is a consumer marketing platform that's powered by music artists, driven by data, and plays everywhere people spend time. MAX engineers the perfect mix of music and marketing that consumers lean in and listen to. The MAX Platform™ is built on proprietary data science that weaves together 2.4 million artists across 765 genres with 200+ consumer attributes to perfectly match brands with just the right artists, and then precisely reach the audiences they both want as fans. Brands get the growth they want. Artists get the exposure they need. Consumers get content and experiences they love.