Muso raises $1.5m in seed funding round to grow Australia’s live music scene

Live music marketplace, Muso, today announced it has raised AU$1.5 million in a seed funding round to accelerate growth, expand its operations and build out its core team over the next 12 months.

Muso was founded in 2018 by co-founders, Jeremiah Siemianow, Brandon Crimmins and Alan Jin to help up-and-coming local musicians find and book live gigs, while enabling venues to uncover and access new talent.

The funding round was led by early-stage investment group Investible and the new impact investment fund from Alberts, Alberts Impact Capital, who are investing alongside music company Unified Music Group and notable angel investors.

Muso aims to rejuvenate Australia’s live music scene and create as much live music in as many locations as possible by simplifying the entire end-to-end process for venues, personal hirers and artists - from discovery to rostering, scheduling, booking and payment - and giving artists a consistent and easily accessible source of income from gigs.

Muso’s mission has struck a chord with artists and venues across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, with over 1800 new gigs created since its launch, 900 gigs booked and 750 gigs already played.

With venues on board around the country and over 850 artists available for booking, Muso plans to become the go-to marketplace for booking undiscovered talent and a springboard for artists launching into professional music careers.

‍Jeremiah Siemianow, co-founder and CEO of Muso, said: “We started Muso after realising there was a real disconnect between musicians and venues on a local level. Many venues struggle to find musicians and DJs, while musicians end up wasting time and energy securing gigs and chasing payments.

“Live music is hard to organise, especially if you're not networked or if you're time-poor. Because of this, we realised there was a massive lost opportunity for local live music. We found that if we made live music easier to organise, more venues would begin hosting it, in turn creating more opportunities for musicians,” Mr Siemianow added.

‍Mr Siemianow continued: “We’re thrilled to be working with a group of investors that cover a broad range of expertise and experience. The deep music industry pedigree of Alberts Impact Capital combined with the firepower from Investible’s early-stage fund and network is something we’re incredibly excited about.”

‍David Albert, CEO of Alberts, commented: “We are really pleased to be partnering with Muso and its impressive young founders - a company that seeks to create a positive impact by increasing opportunities for live entertainment, providing artists with greater access to performance opportunities and ensuring artists get paid on time. The investment reflects Alberts heritage, its long association with the music industry and ongoing support of pioneers passionate about live music.”

‍Hugh Bickerstaff, Chief Investment Officer at Investible, said: “I was most impressed by Muso’s founder team, whose passion and hard work has resulted in significant early traction for the business.  

“Building a two-sided marketplace is never easy. Jeremiah, Alan and Brandon have identified a significant opportunity to improve the way artists and venues connect and work together. We are already seeing early signs of virality with artists organically signing up and venues onboarding themselves in the quest to find new talent,” Mr Bickerstaff added.

Muso is available for download on the App Store and Google Play, or you can visit musoapp.com.au to get started.