SFX Entertainment continues its buying spree in the EDM world with the purchase of music-download site Beatport, a source confirmed to Billboard.biz today. The deal was for slightly more than $50 million, the source said, although SFX chief Robert F. X. Sillerman declined to name the price. The news was first reported in the New York Times.
Beatport head Matthew Adell told the paper that being part of SFX could help the company expand into live events as well as internationally.
“We already are by far the largest online destination of qualified fans and talent in the market,” he said, “and we can continue to grow that.”
Beatport had $15-18 million in revenue last year but had losses of around $2 million.
Last month, SFX added five new companies to its portfolio, including Voodoo Experience and ID&T — the largest dance-event promoter in the world — giving the company a significant foothold in the North American festival market, and not just in EDM.
Last year, SFX acquired Dayglow Productions (“The World’s Largest Paint Party”) and Disco Donnie Presents, and had been expected to purchase Insomniac Events, the producer of Electric Daisy Carnival, but the ID&T news and a rival bid from Live Nation seemed to make that less likely. The two companies host similar, potentially competitive events. Speaking with Billboard.biz last month, Sillerman, however, did not count out an Insomniac deal.
“We never comment on stuff like that, but it’s fair to say that we’ve been talking to everybody,” he says. “Pasquale [Rotella, Insomniac president] is in his own way a genius, and has accomplished things that no one else has come close to. So with that level of respect, you can draw your own conclusion.”
