Social-Centered Remix Startup Hook Expands Seed Spherical, Targets to ‘Maintain the Full Fee of UGC’

Social-targeted remix startup Hook has expanded its seed round to a entire of $3.5 million and added a Snap music exec to its advisory board.

AI-powered Hook printed the newly received capital this day, after disclosing in October of 2023 that it had purchased $3 million in seed funding. Waverley Capital and Level72 Ventures led the latter round, whereas Imaginary Ventures as successfully as “a neighborhood of strategic music and social media commerce traders” assign up the correct-identified $500,000.

Founded by Natalie Massenet and Reduce Brown, New York City-basically based Imaginary has backed companies including Stripe and Skims since arriving on the scene in 2017, per its web site.

Within the interim, moreover to publicly highlighting this most up-to-date funding achievement, Hook took the replacement to snort its preliminary advisory board. The involved consultants consist of but aren’t restricted to DJ KSHMR, Snap music-partnerships exec Manny Adler, former Sound Ventures associate Abe Burns, Downtown Tune founder Justin Kalifowitz, Hundred Days co-founder Benjamin Klein, and Reed Smith managing associate Gregor Pryor.

Within the intervening time “in non-public closed beta,” Hook says it’s coordinating with artists, labels, and social media services alike “to manufacture a platform that unlocks recent revenue streams” for music.

Furthermore, Hook founder and CEO Gaurav Sharma, formerly JioSaavn’s COO, in a press release underscored his company’s draw of optimizing UGC monetization on social services.

“Artist compensation on social media is one amongst the most pressing points within the commerce,” Sharma acknowledged in piece. “Hook is working with artists, labels and rights holders to again them steal the corpulent price of UGC and fan expression on social media. That’s proper one amongst the reasons the traders possess been so fascinated with us.

“Natalie Massenet is a confirmed, authentic visionary who understands how to provide, and having her and her crew at Imaginary supporting us will likely be our superpower,” he proceeded.

Seriously, KSHMR in remarks of his have emphasised the perceived accessibility and ease of use on the again of Hook.

“The era of viral selfmade remixes is here and Hook is the first platform to note and produce sense of it,” the Berkeley-born Karam creator communicated. “It’s also the first app I’ve considered in years that might maybe actually discover realistic Joes rising music – anybody with a thumb can produce it. I’m proud to be enraged by the early phases and can’t now stay awake for fogeys to ascertain up on proper how enjoyable Hook is to play with.”

In step with its web site, Hook is made up our minds to reach on the App Store “rapidly,” with a waitlist in build for creators, followers, artists, and labels.