It’s been a busy year for mindfulness startup Calm: it raised $88m of funding in February and another $27m in July – the latter at a $1bn valuation for the company – while also releasing albums by Moby and Above & Beyond.
Earlier this week, CEO Michael Acton Smith said the app has generated 135m music streams so far, adding that “it’s a great time to come to artists with creative ideas”. Now we know one of the key people who’ll be responsible for that process: Courtney Phillips. Formerly director of brand partnerships at Universal Music Group, she’s now Calm’s head of music.
We’ll be interested to see how Calm’s strategy evolves: thus far it has been less about licensing existing music, and more about commissioning original material directly from artists, on an exclusive basis for a lengthy period of time.
