Jaxsta to Acquire Vampr
Jaxsta has reached an agreement to acquire Vampr, the Australian-created world-leading music industry social network.
In what’s shaping as the most significant deal for Jaxsta in the Beth Appleton era, both parties strike a heads of agreement that would immediately expand Jaxsta’s user base by plugging it into Vampr’s 1.3 million-strong creator community.
The acquisition, a cash-and-shares arrangement announced Wednesday morning (Feb. 22), by way of a statement to the ASX, provides an “accelerated implementation of Jaxsta’s growth strategy,” one of the key planks to Appleton’s gameplan on her appointment as chief executive in April 2022.
Also, notes a statement, Vampr users represent “a growing portion of the independent music community” who should now be able to increase adoption of the Jaxsta platform and product offering.
Through this pact, Vampr co-founder and CEO Josh Simons joins the Jaxsta C-Suite as chief strategy officer to oversee Jaxsta’s product portfolio merge.
The purchase “represents a rare opportunity to accelerate the expansion of our business,” says Appleton in a statement.
“We continue to focus on driving revenue growth and profitability capitalizing on the bedrock of the Jaxsta platform and the moat we have built through our industry leading music data solution.”
Combining both sides’ “grassroots network with the definitive official music credits database is both a highly strategic and logical combination which we believe will provide great value to Vampr and Jaxsta’s users as well as our mutual shareholders,” explains Simons in a statement to the ASX.
“Our team cannot wait to get started and I’m personally very excited to work with Beth and the
Jaxsta team to build transformational products for the music industry and music lovers.”
Additionally, the enlarged company should “greatly accelerate adoption of Vinyl.com, the “marketplace for music fandom,” says Paul Wiltshire, CEO of Songtradr, which operates the platform, powered by Jaxsta.
Established in 2016 by The Music Network’s 30 Under 30 Power Player Simons and Hunters & Collectors guitarist Baz Palmer, Vampr was born out of necessity.
Simons hit on the idea while hunting for musicians to take out on the road with his band Buchanan.
Frustrated by the music industry’s outmoded networking model, Simons joined forces with ARIA Hall of Famer Palmer and built their own.
Problem solved.
Since that idea was developed, Vampr, once described as musos’ equivalent to Tinder, has added new features for digital distribution and sync placements, and raised several million dollars in funding.
Along the way, Vampr earned a nod in Apple’s Best Apps of The Year list, scooped honours at the Lovie Awards in Europe, took glory at SF Music Tech in California, was named in Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies” list, and received a Music Week Award nomination.
Its 1.3 million registered users are said to be active in 182 countries.
Currently, Jaxsta contains more than 310 million official, deep-linked music credits across 80 million pages, sourced from over 349 data partners.
Combined pro forma unaudited calendar year revenues through 31 December 2022 would be $603,000, reads a statement.
“Together,” says Appleton, “I believe we are going to be an exceptional company that will be at the forefront of the rapidly evolving music industry landscape”.