Puma Private Equity invests £3.2m into data company MUSO

Puma Private Equity has invested £3.2m into MUSO, a data company that provides a complete and trusted view of global piracy and unlicensed media consumption. The investment will support the establishment of MUSO’s marketing function and build out its sales teams in both the United Kingdom and United States.

MUSO has seen a 25% increase in general digital piracy year-on-year, when comparing H1 of 2021 to H1 of 2022. Its unique and transformative data is fast becoming a must have data-currency for entertainment companies and is already used by the likes of Amazon Studios, National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), NOS, Lionsgate, MNRK (formally eOne Music), Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe, and more.

MUSO’s technology measures hundreds of billions of visits to Piracy websites each year and provides unrivalled consumption and audience data that allows rightsholders to better protect their content from Piracy but also increase their revenues.

“Piracy remains a significant issue for the entertainment industry, but MUSO’s data enables companies to use it to discover vast, valuable and undiscovered audiences. Our customers are using our data to acquire and commission content, unlock new marketing opportunities, leverage value in licensing negotiations, maximise and optimise windowing strategies. MUSO is a game-changer to the entertainment industry’s approach to piracy. We are turning the tables on two decades of losses and creating value-driven opportunities from this challenging inevitability of digital consumption.

 

“MUSO has made excellent progress since Puma’s investment, with growth in revenue and customer numbers, and hitting product milestones. Our focus for FY24 remains on delivering triple-digit ARR growth and adding to its global enterprise customer logos, which currently include Disney, Amazon, Sony Interactive, PlayStation, Krafton and AMC. We remain the only company in the market that measures audience demand from unlicensed streaming websites and are well resourced to capture significant market share and become omnipresent as the market authority.”

Andy Chatterley, Chief Executive Officer of MUSO

Andy added, “Our customers are using our data to acquire and commission content, unlock new marketing opportunities, leverage value in licensing negotiations, maximise and optimise windowing strategies. MUSO is a game-changer to the entertainment industries approach to piracy. We are turning the tables on two decades of losses and creating value-driven opportunities from this challenging inevitability of digital consumption.

“This investment from Puma Private Equity comes at an incredibly transformative time for MUSO. Piracy continues to be a major problem for rightsholders and we are committed to implementing new strategies that allow us to not only protect content but to provide increased commercial value by measuring understanding and activating our audience data. We will be deploying this investment into expanding our sales and marketing teams and activities to highlight MUSO’s valuable products and data to the global entertainment industries.”

“We’re pleased to have completed our investment in MUSO, as we believe the business shows significant growth potential. As on-demand streaming platforms grow and drive a fragmentation of content distribution, global firms like MUSO will play an increasingly important role in monitoring and tackling piracy.”

Harriet Rosethorn, Investment Director at Puma Private Equity

Harriet continued, “This deal is just the latest example of Puma Private Equity’s long track record of supporting companies with untapped growth potential. We look forward to working closely with the team to achieve their goals.”

Congratulations to Harriet Rosethorn for leading this transaction. MUSO engaged M&A Advisor Lazarus Consulting to find and secure the right investor for the company.