After hearing his music being played in a famous London department store—and subsequently discovering he was not getting paid for the usage of his Top 10 song—former musician Ryan Edwards delves into the challenge.

Finding that public performance royalties were often from estimations based on popular radio play and manual data-entry, Ryan creates Audoo, with a vision to deliver a more accurate system for compensating artists and composers for the public performance of their work.

Audoo eclipses its latest funding target by raising £1.5 million and relocates to Tileyard London, an innovative hub for music creatives with over 70 state-of-the-art music studios.

Renowned as Europe’s first music-tech incubator, Audoo is part of a select cohort on this prestigious programme, which finds and nurtures inventors and early-stage businesses introducing the next generation of technology into the music industry.

Chris Herbert, founder and original manager of the Spice Girls, former manager of Five, Hear'Say and B*Witched, invests in Audoo and joins the board. 

Audoo is among a British delegation of innovative tech companies selected to join the UK Department for International Trade and the Mayor of London for the UK’s flagship showcases at leading tech events CES (US) and CEBIT (Australia), additionally beating 250 businesses to win the CEBIT pitch competition.

Nigel Elderton, PRS for Music Chariman and Peermusic European President, joins Audoo as an advisor. 

Among 20 finalists, Audoo takes the title in the Music Marketing/Data Analytics category at the acclaimed MIDEM Music Industry Conference.

Embarking on a Series A funding round, backing comes in from Edinv, Björn Ulvaeus (ABBA founder and CISAC President) and more from existing investors Tileyard London, to the tune of £5.2m ($6.5m). Audoo CEO Ryan says: “To have the continued support from our musical heroes like Björn further helps deliver our vision globally.”

It is the magic number, and the Techround team votes in Audoo among the crème de la crème of UK music and audio-tech companies.

Steve Robbins, former Head of Software at Bowers & Wilkins, who was responsible for building out the software development team and leading the design and implementation of the company’s cloud platform, joins Audoo as CTO. 

APRA, SACEM, GEMA, JASRAC, PRS for Music and PPL pilot our technology. The evidence and feedback is beyond all expectations... the Audio Meter is the tool PROs/CMOs have been looking for.

Backers of the Audoo mission continue to pour in. Raising a further £7.2m ($8.9m) in this funding round led by Edinv, and attracting the notable investment from MPL Ventures.

Cliff Fluet, leader of Lewis Silkin's Media & Entertainment group, Vice Chair of the Help Musicians and Chair of Music Minds Matter and founder of Eleven Advisory, joins the Audoo board. 

The first Audoo panel at the Austin-based conference called ‘Are You Getting Yours? Public Performance Explored’ is hosted by lawyer and Audoo board advisor Cliff Fluet, joined by Nigel Elderton (PRS for Music Chairman), Pam Shayne (Songwriter) and Molly Newman (CEO of Songtrust America) to an audience of influential executives across music and technology.

In conjunction with APRA AMCOS, OneMusic Australia & OneMusic New Zealand Audio Meters are adopted nationally across both countries.

Audoo collaborates on an industry-first data partnership with the body which governs performing right organisations globally.

Nigel Elderton, former PRS for Music Chariman and Peermusic European President, becomes Audoo's Chairman. 

APRA updates their distribution methods to incorporate public performance data received from Audoo. By leveraging Audoo’s real-world music usage data, APRA enhances the accuracy of its distributions to members — ensuring that creators are compensated based on what’s actually played in public spaces.

Audoo closes £5MM funding round, with investment received from Sir Elton John. When asked about his investment, Elton states "Right now, artists are not being paid accurately for their plays because the data simply doesn't exist. People have given up on their dreams and we've lost talent and future stars because of this disparity. That's why we've invested in Audoo and their world-class technology, to help create a more transparent system for everyone, and ultimately to keep the music alive."

Audoo proudly welcomes Steve Clark (COO, Round Hill Music), Isabel Garvey (COO, Warner Music UK), and Sean O’Malley (CEO & Founder, Regard Music) to the Board. The combined expertise of Steve, Isabel, and Sean brings a powerful wealth of knowledge spanning labels, publishers, rightsholders, and creators. Their appointments underscore the strength of belief in Audoo’s mission - having such highly respected executives join an already world-class group of Board members and Advisors is a testament to the impact Audoo is making across the music industry.

PMY Group, which provides technology services for events globally, partners with Audoo to enhance public performance reporting for music creators, licensees, and businesses at large-scale events. The partnership involves integrating Audoo’s Audio Meter technology into PMY’s OPTIC platform to set “new reporting and transparency standards for the music industry at major events worldwide".

On World Entrepreneurs Day 2024, Audoo CEO & Founder Ryan Edwards is recognised by TechRound as one of their ‘Top 20 Iconic Entrepreneurs’ — celebrating innovation, impact, and leadership across the tech landscape.

Audoo announces a new partnership with The Metropolitan Pub Company, as part of their Direct to Venue programme. Audio Meters are installed across 70+ Metropolitan Pub Company premises, enabling the collection of accurate music consumption data from some of the UK’s most popular pubs.

CNBC International ask to interview the Audoo team for their segment Converge, exploring the intersection between innovation, investment, leadership and sustainability across business, sports and entertainment. 

Audoo launches across hundreds of locations in Denver, USA, marking a major step forward in public performance music monitoring. Data gathered from these real-world plays is analysed by Digital Music News, in relation to US Copyright Office inquiry into PRO licensing revenue distribution practices. The results are eye-opening: when Audoo’s venue-based data is compared to digital streaming charts and radio airplay, there is minimal overlap in repertoire. This suggests that the current distribution methods—relying on digital and broadcast proxies—fail to accurately reflect what is actually being played in public spaces. The implications for rightsholder payments are profound.

Audoo and GEMA partner to deliver GEMA's Music Impact Study, measuring the impact of music in hundreds of retail and gastronomy venues across Germany.