DistroKid, an independent music distributor that claims to distribute 30-40% of all new music in the world, has acquired Bandzoogle, a website hosting and e-commerce company that caters to musicians.
The deal, which was announced on September 13, 2023, will allow artists to create and manage their own websites and online stores within the DistroKid ecosystem.
- Based on an article by Murray Stassen, on Music Business Worldwide, on September 13, 2023. Pictured : Philip Kaplan, Founder and CEO of DistroKid and Bandzoogle CEO Stacey Bedford
Bandzoogle, which was launched in Canada in 2003, has helped over 60,000 artists build effective websites and sell over $100 million worth of music, merch and tickets directly to their fans. Bandzoogle has never taken a cut of those sales since introducing its direct-to-fan e-commerce tools in 2010.
Bandzoogle offers various features for artists, such as web stores, crowdfunding, fan subscriptions and mailing lists. Bandzoogle members pay a fixed monthly fee, starting from $8.29 to $16.63 per month.
"Only time will tell if current fragmented DSP offerings (Spotify for Artists Merch + Shopify integration, Apple Music + Linkfire, Amazon Artist Merch shop, etc) will lead to more vertical integrations at the end of the music value chain (ex. Logic Pro --> Platoon --> Apple Music --> ???). I'm so far dubious about the long term outlook for this strategy in music with material revenue", wrote Ty Teixeira, VP, Operations and Integrations @ ADA (Warner Music Group) on his LinkedIn profile.
The acquisition of Bandzoogle by DistroKid follows a recent investment from Insight Partners, which valued DistroKid at $1.3 billion in August 2021. DistroKid, which was founded by Philip Kaplan in 2013, is used by more than 2 million artists and offers various services, such as digital distribution, mastering, splits and hyperfollow. DistroKid also has a minority stake from Spotify, which invested in the company in 2018.
To read more about the acquisition and how it will benefit artists, labels and listeners, you can visit the original article at Music Business Worldwide.
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