Netease Cloud Music received 750 million yuan in Series A financing, valued at 8 billion yuan, ranking among unicorns

On April 11, Netease Cloud Music announced that the company had recently completed Series A financing. This round of financing amount is 750 million yuan, which is strategically led by Shanghai Radio and Television Station and Shanghai Culture Radio, Film and Television Group, with Mango Cultural and Creative Equity Investment Fund and Zhongjin Jiatai Fund. After this round of financing, Netease Cloud Music's valuation reached 8 billion yuan.

Original title Netease Cloud Music received 750 million yuan in Series A financing: its valuation of 8 billion yuan exceeded 300 million yuan.

On April 11, Netease Cloud Music announced that the company has recently completed Series A financing. This round of financing amount is 750 million yuan, which is strategically led by Shanghai Radio and Television Station, Shanghai Culture Radio, Film and Television Group (referred to as "SMG"), Mango Cultural and Creative (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund (referred to as "Mango Cultural and Creative"), and Zhongjin Jiatai Fund participated in the investment. After this round of financing, Netease Cloud Music's valuation reached 8 billion yuan. This round of financing is provided by Fucong Financial, also a subsidiary of Netease, as the exclusive financial adviser.

It is understood that this round of financing will be mainly used to upgrade Netease's cloud music product experience, increase content investment, create a healthy copyright system and establish upstream and downstream music solutions.

In addition, Netease Cloud Music will collaborate in depth with strategic investors in terms of strategy and business. Specifically, it will coordinate the creation and promotion of music variety IP, broaden artist promotion channels, and expand upstream and downstream expansion of the music industry chain.

In April 2013, Netease Cloud Music was officially launched. At first, Netease Cloud Music was launched because most other music platforms were ranked according to popularity recommendations and could not satisfy niche music tastes. In the early days, Netease Cloud Music captured this group of users and cooperated with many niche singers.

On July 14,2015, Netease Cloud Music announced that its number of users exceeded 100 million, generating 120 million music reviews and 200 million music sharing times accumulatively; In July 2016, the number of users exceeded 200 million; On March 8,2017, Netease Cloud Music released a new version. In the update description, Netease Cloud Music emphasized two points: 1. Do pan-entertainment content community;2. Launch Short Video function. Today, Netease Cloud Music announced that the number of users has exceeded 300 million.

As a digital music service provider, Netease Cloud Music has its advantages in its good user reputation and user loyalty. Its core users are college students and white-collar workers, and they belong to a group with high ability and willingness to pay.

First of all, as a monetization method used by almost all music platforms, Netease Cloud Music has also launched members. In terms of the growth of membership, the number of music libraries and copyrights are very important factors. In July last year, Netease Cloud Music announced 10 million music libraries, which is not high compared with 20 million and 15 million on other platforms. However, Netease Cloud Music said that the open rate of music library is 80%. The playback rate and effective utilization rate of the music library are relatively high.

However, in terms of copyright, Netease's competitiveness still needs to be improved. In July last year, Tencent and CMC (China Music Group) completed the merger of digital music businesses. Subsequently, Tencent controlled almost 42% of music and lyrics copyright authorizations and 53.1% of music recording copyright authorizations in China. Ali Music, which has strong channels and e-commerce capabilities, has also launched Ali Planet, which integrates music production, fans and performances. Data from iResearch's "2016 China Online Music Industry Research Report" shows that the merged Tencent New Music Group ranks first in terms of copyright coverage, followed by Netease Cloud Music and Ali Music.

Netease Cloud Music, which has always attached great importance to independence and originality, has become one of the music platforms with the largest number of independent musicians in China in the past three years. As of the second half of 2016, its independent musicians exceeded 200,000. On the premise that competitors monopolize copyright, it may be a good direction to develop copyright across the entire industry chain while developing upstream in the music industry.

Editor: Nancy