Music tech investor Francois Arbour joins Hazel Savage’s Musiio cap table: Exclusive

Musiio, co-founded by music technology veteran Hazel Savage, has just accelerated its growth further thanks to a new strategic investment from Francois Arbour.

Francois Arbour, an investor in over 60 startups, founded PremiumBeat, which sold to Shutterstock for US$47M in 2015. Now, thanks to an introduction with Savage via a mutual friend, Francois Arbour has joined the Musiio Capitalisation Table.

Musiio uses AI to take the grunt work out of generating tags for tunes at pace and scale. It essentially ‘listens’ to music to make the most out of music library searches, supercharging sync companies, labels, and streaming platforms to tag, search, curate or playlist their audio.

Credit: Musiio

CEO and Co-Founder of Musiio Hazel Savage said:

“There was an instant camaraderie, Francois completely understood the business model, the drive and the demand for Musiio without me even having to explain it. I am especially excited to work with Francois because his experience in music tech runs deep.

“To have an investor who has previously sold one of his enterprises to Shutterstock for USD$47,000,000 whilst owning 98% of the company means we are tapping into a music network we have not had before,” Savage added. “I’m delighted to be working with Francois as a strategic investor.”

New investor Francois Arbour said of the deal:

“I am delighted to announce my investment in Musiio. I have been in the music tech space since 2005 and have seen the incredible potential of technology and AI applied to the music industry.

“I’m also pleased to invest in such a strong founding team led by a world-class female CEO,” Arbour added. “I have invested in over 60 companies in the past years, and I think I’ve developed a good eye for exceptional talent. The Musiio team hits all the right notes.”

Whilst the valuation is currently being kept mum, Musiio is one of the most sought after start-ups in the music space. In August last year, TIO announced indie licensing platform and sync specialist Jamendo tapped Musiio to tag it catalogue using artificial intelligence.

In late 2019, Musiio and Audio Network inked an “industry first” alliance to utilise the “power of AI” to improve speed and efficiencies, and make the most out of music library searches.

Recently, Musiio announced a new set of AI tags available via their API. The company can now identify eight different types of audio, allowing companies to distinguish between stems, samples, FX, commercial tracks and more, as well as launching Sync Genres, or ‘use cases’ such as Cinematic, Adventure, Retro and many other useful keywords for music placement. 

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.