Aiming to find the signal through the noise, Groover raises $7 million, puts new artists front and centre

Parisian musician-focused startup Groover has raised $7 million in funding. The platform helps new and yet-to-be-discovered talent raise their profile by opening direct channels to music curators and other industry professionals. The new wax is expected to cut deep grooves into global expansion plans, primarily through aggressive recruitment charts. Including this round, Groover has put $8.7 million notes to stave.

Before we dive into what Groover does, let’s take a step back and examine why Groover does what Groover does. When we’re talking music it’s next to impossible to ignore the Spotify-shaped elephant in the room. Now counting for more than 60,000 new songs hitting the airways everyday, the chances of an unknown becoming a known, are, well, quite literally, like finding the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack. Maybe the best way to think of Groover is as the magnifying glass and or metal detector used in the haystack.

Founded in 2018 by musicians Romain Palmieri, Dorian Perron, and Rafael Cohen, Groover celebrated a public launch in January of 2019 and has built a community of 70,000+ independent artists from over 100 countries around the globe. As a result of this blood, sweat, and tears, to date, over one million tracks have received feedback from a vetted cadre of some 1,5000 music curators and professionals.

Taking things even one step further, Groover launched its own accelerator programme in 2021, and uses a scoring algorithm to analyse and pinpoint the cream of the crop within its community and pools partners including media outlets, funding, NFT monetisation options, the tracking of publishing rights, and distribution, to name a few, behind these artists. So far, the startup has spotlighted rapper Alvin Chris who was discovered after his viral videos on TikTok, the Canadian singer-songwriter thaïs, and the Nashville-based indie folk artist, Mcclendon.

Groover’s $7 million round was co-led by Partech and Bpifrance through their Tech & Touch fund, with the participation of Verve Ventures, French Founders New York and the founders of Jellysmack.

“Groover has established an extremely powerful network effect over multiple continents, through which their artists can promote their music within their own country as well as abroad, and on the other side, the media can quickly spot talent around the world. As a result, they have succeeded to reach an organic growth rate of 75%! It’s their worldwide ambition and the power of their business model that won us over,” concludes Partech’s Alison Imbert.