Hoopr gives Indian independent music artists a platform to get discovered

The Indian music industry is heavily intertwined with the film, ad, and gaming industries. These industries have also slowly started to include music pieces created by independent artists instead of creating customized music from scratch.   

This increased adoption of already created music pieces has led to the need for a platform to regulate the use and downloading of such music by video creators as well as artists.

Hoopr has developed a platform that provides video creators with various genres of music and gives independent artists a platform to be found.

Hoopr is a music licensing platform which provides its customers with music which can be layered over any kind of content be it professional ads, TV series, movies, live game streaming, etc. The Mumbai-based company provides music which is copyrights safe to anyone who downloads music from its platform to avoid takedowns and lawsuits.

CEO and co-founder Gaurav Dagaonkar told Entrackr, “Our USP is we specialize in Indian music.”

The platform is home to over 25,000 music tracks and 3,000 sound effects from artists across India which video creators can license. The music on Hoopr is also completely exclusive to the platform.

Explaining the process of making these songs available on the platform Dagaonkar said, “We source the tracks from labels or artists who make these songs and make it available for video creators who want to license.” Meant to be used in production as a soundtrack, the buyers on the platform usually are video and content creators and the suppliers are musicians or music creators.

In terms of utility, the platform focuses purely on downloading where each download comes along with a corresponding license. The license file given to anyone who downloads the songs shows that the track has been downloaded legally.

Having more than just songs to offer, the platform also has a collection of soundtracks available. These sound effects could be anything from the sounds of crowded streets to sounds in a salon or office. Hoopr continues to work with various sound designers and engineers hailing from India to create its own library of sound effects.

Approaching the industry a little differently, Hoopr is aiming bigger than just sourcing the tracks from independent artists. The platform has a catalogue that the company entirely owns from sound recording to publishing. This means the platform holds all rights to that song. In the future, the startup plans on increasing the number of songs it owns fully and administers the rights to.

Although Hoopr is an Indian company, a license holder can use the downloaded track irrespective of which part of the world they are in as the inventory is digital. In a sense, the license is completely digital and global and can be used even outside India.

India has a deep market when it comes to content creation both at an individual level and at a B2B level. Focusing on doubling down on the Indian domain, the company plans on exploring deeper into the music and sounds of each of the Indian states.  

The company is currently in talks with national as well as international OTT platforms, broadcasters, and production houses that are looking for Indian music to use in their productions.

“The future is in licensing whether it is in brands, cinema, or web shows.”, Dagaonkar said. Backing his statement, he explained how brands don’t necessarily want to customize a song every time they put out a campaign. Instead, they look for a track that fits the mood of the ad and Hoopr.ai builds a playlist of such tracks for them.

This process is such that it not only saves time and expenses for filmmakers, brands, and OTT platforms but also creates a platform for artists to get discovered and be a part of a new ecosystem in India.

Many of the films that recently won awards at the India film project had taken songs from Hoopr. The artists of these songs got their due credit and recognition, which might not have happened if they weren’t on the platform.

Meghna Mittal and Gaurav Dagaonkar launched the company in 2021, which raised $1.5 million in its seed round in December 2021.

The company currently has about 10,000 active users on their platform and is expecting to onboard 10-15 thousand users per month-on-month. It is targeting to onboard around 1 lakh users by the end of the upcoming financial year.

The company mainly has four main international competitors such as Sweden-based Epidemic Sound, Israel-based Artlist, and US-based Storyblocks and Soundstripe. Free music libraries remain a constant competition to the platform since content creators often lean towards using music that they can download and use for free.