Music licensing marketplace Songtradr has established a brand-new global creative division and tapped music industry vet Amanda Schupf to lead it, Billboard has learned. In addition, John Butler has been hired as the company’s head of music programming and curation.
Songtradr’s global creative division will work with artists, labels, music catalogs and rights holders to secure access to music for the company’s music subscription products, which provide sync products to businesses as well as cleared music for content creators. The division will comprise three sectors: artist and label services; music programming and curation; and Songtradr’s original music initiative.
In her new role as senior vp of global creative, Schupf will establish and lead Songtradr’s global creative strategy across the company’s product ecosystem, with an emphasis on hiring, developing and overseeing creative teams. The music industry veteran previously held A&R management positions at Imagem (now Concord) and Ingrooves Music Publishing before starting her own boutique music management company, MAX, in 2018. She has worked with artists including John Legend, Mark Ronson, Ludacris and Swizz Beatz, among others.
Butler will develop programming strategies in an effort to expand the adoption of Songtradr products such as Pretzel, which provides stream-safe music for livestreamers. Before joining Songtradr, the 25-year music industry player worked as a global music genre lead at Spotify. Prior to that, he was vp of promotion at Curb Records, where he oversaw successful genre crossover campaigns for artists including Tim McGraw, Hank Williams III, Wynonna and LeAnn Rimes.
“Amanda’s experience, network and entrepreneurial spirit impressed us from the start, making her the perfect person to take on this role as we pioneer a fair model for music used by content creators and businesses.” said Paul Wiltshire, CEO of Songtradr, in a statement. “We’re thrilled that she’s brought on John Butler to lead music programming and curation. His vast knowledge of music, ability to elevate our data strategy and his understanding of our users’ needs make him a great fit for the role.”
“There is nothing better than joining a growing company at a vital time in our industry,” said Schupf. “Songtradr’s forward-thinking technology is disrupting the licensing landscape by removing barriers for rights holders and giving them direct access to opportunities and new layers of revenue.”
“Songtradr has quickly become the largest, most all encompassing music marketplace in the world,” Butler added. “I’m looking forward to joining the growing global team and building out our products further with access to high quality music and notable artists.”
Today’s news follows last week’s announcement that Songtradr had completed a $50M Series D funding round from Australia-based institutional investors Regal, Aware Super, Perennial, Argo and Greencape and a follow-on investment from Richard White, the founder and CEO of Wisetech Global. The latest investment brought the company’s total funding to north of $100 million to date, valuing Songtradr at more than $300 million.
Since completing its $30 million Series C funding round in Aug. 2020, Songtradr has built out its portfolio with acquisitions including creative music agency MassiveMusic, Cuesongs, Song Zu, Pretzel and Tunefind.
Headquartered in Los Angeles and with offices in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, Songtradr connects its over 600,000 artists, songwriters and music rights owners to a B2B marketplace that caters to such clients as Disney, Netflix, Apple, Coca-Cola, Amazon and Google.
