Edge Investments has raised more than $ 113 million to invest in creative early stage startups. Photo credit: Priscilla Du Preez
Edge Investments has officially raised about $ 113.39 million (of a target of about $ 133 million) for its second venture capital fund, and superiors plan to spend the multi-million dollar tranche on creative start-ups..
Several regional outlets recently announced the first round of £ 85million ($ 113.39million at the current exchange rate) that London-based Edge Investments has attracted for its Create the Future fund. As reported, 14-year-old Edge – who in 2019 invested $ 4.6 million in the online booking platform Festicket – ultimately expects the said fund to close with £ 100million ($ 133.40million). dollars) in capital, which is two and a half times the amount that the entity 2015 first generated funds.
While Edge has yet to announce its specific plans for the windfall, Business Growth said leaders will invest the money “in the creative economy” as well as in education technology, augmented and virtual reality, advertising technology, distribution and the content creation space.
Primarily targeting ‘start-ups’ as mentioned, Edge will invest between $ 1.34million and $ 6.68million (£ 1million and £ 5million) in each of the companies that its second fund supports. , according to the same source.
It’s also worth mentioning that Edge founder and CEO David Glick started chairing Tap Music, which operates as a label, publisher and management company, in August 2020. On the management side, the website de Tap lists customers including Dua. Lipa, Ellie Goulding and Lana Del Rey, among many others.
Addressing the increase of about $ 113.39 million in a statement, Glick said in part, “If you don’t have social mobility, you don’t have civilization. The creative economy is a formidable engine of jobs, it rewards talent, courage and determination as much as academic excellence.
“Edge’s role is important in providing a bridge between the creative economy – which suffers from a lack of access to finance and private capital markets, by making a positive contribution to the general well-being of society and promoting social mobility, ”concluded Glick, whose second company fund has received $ 66.78 million (£ 50 million) from the British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds program.
In the last couple of years or so, in particular, all kinds of funding has reached startups that operate at the intersection of music, technology, and creativity.
Apple in May 2020 gave up $ 100 million on virtual reality company NextVR, for example, and several notable players have emerged in the augmented reality space. Additionally, MelodyVR kicked off 2021 by acquiring Napster and voicing ambitious plans to develop a “hybrid, multiplatform music service”.
On the metaverse side, the “musical experience startup” Stage11 closed a fundraising round of nearly $ 6 million last month, in addition to entering into partnership agreements with Snoop Dogg, Akon and David Guetta. Meanwhile, a variety of Roblox-focused startups recently completed their own funding rounds, and Roar Studios in October raised $ 7 million to create a “musical metaverse” for online collaboration.
