Q3 2024 Brought Another Double-Digit Music Industry Funding Dip — And Signs of a Possible Acceleration Heading Into Q4

Music industry funding suffered a double-digit year-over-year decrease in Q3 2024 despite some signs of a possible acceleration during the quarter’s second half. Photo Credit: Alexander Schimmeck

Music industry companies raised $425.28 million during Q3 2024, which brought a funding acceleration on a quarterly basis but fell far short of the sum attached to Q3 2023.These stats come from an analysis of DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker, a searchable and filterable database of raises from in and around the industry. While DMN Pro is set to release an in-depth breakdown of the third-quarter numbers later this week, even a top-level look at the figures provides telling insight.

In part, that’s because of the material funding slide attributable to 2024’s initial nine months. We’ve charted the apparent decrease in raise volume and size throughout the year, and DMN Pro’s forthcoming weekly report will also compare the first, second, and third quarters of 2024 with their 2023 counterparts.

Keeping the focus on Q3 2024 for the time being, the $425.28 million in cumulative funding was spread across 16 rounds for an average of $26.58 million apiece. TickPick laid claim to the largest of the rounds by securing a $250 million growth investment in late August.Overall, Q3 2024’s funding was significantly beneath that delivered by Q3 2023, north of $2.56 billion across 30 rounds. The older period’s average round size was $85.43 million, in excess of three times more than the average for 2024’s third quarter.

However, there’s more to the story than the 83.4% YoY funding slip from Q1 to Q3 2023 and the same window in 2024. The one-stop Music Industry Funding tracker compiles raises from directly within the industry and from adjacent spheres. Falling squarely into the latter category for Q3 2023 were Amazon’s $1.25 billion Anthropic investment and the $760 million Partners IV fund.

Anthropic is, of course, an AI giant, and The Raine Group’s Partners IV may invest not solely in music companies, but in “sports, media, entertainment and gaming” businesses as well.

Nevertheless, after booting the two rounds’ combined $2.01 billion from Q3 2023’s total, we’re left with a little over $552.86 million – for a YoY falloff of 23.1% in any event.Despite the decrease, Q3 2024 didn’t lack encouraging funding takeaways, including the mentioned strong showing between mid-August and mid-September, TickPick’s noted quarter-billion-dollar raise, and others that will be explored in the weekly report. Moreover, this momentum may translate into a higher-volume and larger-value funding landscape in Q4.

And while even an overwhelmingly positive fourth quarter will almost certainly prove unable to boost 2024’s industry funding above 2023 levels, continued trends in the right direction could lay the groundwork for a big 2025.