Sweden-headquartered music production company Epidemic Sound has published its annual report for 2024.
Financial highlights from the report include a 29% YoY jump in revenues, to 1.921 billion Swedish kronor, or USD $181.62 million at the average exchange rate for 2024.
Epidemic’s adjusted EBITDA, meanwhile, soared 150% YoY to SEK 147 million ($13.9 million), while unadjusted EBITDA increased 24-fold to SEK 107 million ($10.13 million).
“Since 2009, Epidemic Sound has grown from an ambitious idea into a global powerhouse, the leading soundtracking platform, with a mission to soundtrack the world,” CEO Oscar Höglund wrote in the intro the annual report.
According to Epidemic Sound’s annual report, the company boasts more than 50,000 music tracks and 200,000 “Hollywood-grade” sound effects, a library boosted by its recent acquisition of Soundly, which Höglund described as “one of the best sound effects companies in the world.”
That acquisition means “our customers now benefit from a selection of over 250,000 quality tracks and sound effects,” Höglund said, adding Epidemic plans to continue M&A activity “to make high impact ‘tuck-in’ investments that will accelerate our strategy.”
Launched in 2009, Epidemic Sound pays its artists a flat fee for every track created – what one might call a “work for hire” model.
In 2024, Epidemic Sound paid artists a fixed fee of USD $1,500 to $8,000 per track, though it recently announced that the bottom end of that range is rising to $1,775.
This business model gives Epidemic the ability to claim that it is “the only company in this space that fully owns its music, with 100% affiliate-free tracks and sounds… Content creators of any size can easily add music and sound to their videos across all platforms – without worrying about copyright claims, hidden fees, or takedowns.”
No doubt aware that its flat-fee model for artists has previously raised eyebrows in the music industry, the company stresses the various ways in which it has expanded the share of the revenue pie going to artists over the years.
In 2015, when it began distributing its music to YouTube and music streaming services, Epidemic implemented a 50-50 split with artists on royalties from music streamers.
And since 2021, Epidemic has been handing out a “Soundtrack Bonus” to artists, proportional to the popularity of their tracks on the company’s platform. For 2024, the total bonus pool was $2.9 million, up from $2.5 million the year before.
“Epidemic Sound also gives artists the freedom to work under non-exclusive agreements and to be able to work on multiple projects simultaneously,” the company noted in the annual report.
The company also notes the rising popularity of its music, reporting that videos soundtracked with its music now receives 3 billion views on YouTube and TikTok per day, with YouTube alone accounting for 2.3 billion views per day.
That’s up from 2.5 billion YouTube/TikTok views a year earlier.
Höglund highlighted some of those successes in this year’s report, including the Victor Lundberg and Gamma Skies track Seasons of Love, which garnered over 30 million views after it appeared in the YouTube series I’m Turning Into A Vampire from My Story Animated (MSA).
“We will continue to use M&A to make high impact ‘tuck-in’ investments that will accelerate our strategy.”
Oscar Höglund, Epidemic Sound
He also highlighted the company’s growing roster of partnerships with notable musicians, including guitarist Johnny Marr of The Smiths, techno DJ Richie Hawtin, and the Grammy-nominated Jordin Sparks.
“These partnerships not only enrich our music catalog but also offer unique mentorship opportunities for emerging artistic talent and provide creators with an ever more rich and diverse choice of music to inspire them,” Höglund wrote.
In a blog post last year, the company laid out its approach to AI, declaring that its plan is to use AI to help artists rather than replace them – part of what it called an “artist-centric” approach to artificial intelligence.
The company also stressed that any use of AI has to be focused on the needs of the end user of its music.
“We will stay laser-focused on user needs, developing further AI-powered music discovery features and adaptive tools,” Epidemic stated. “Solving real problems for real content creators.”Music Business Worldwide
