Irvine-based digital media agency Specific Media LLC, which acquired Myspace last year, plans to raise $50 million to take on Spotify and Pandora in the digital-music business.
The company plans to use $10 million of the proceeds to fund marketing for a Myspace relaunch and the rest for acquisitions, licensing agreements with labels and “general working capital purposes,” according to an investor presentation.
Specific Media is a unit of Interactive Media Holdings Inc., also based in Irvine.
Myspace is projected to account for about $15 million of Specific Media’s $228 million in revenue this year, according to company documents. Myspace operations are expected to lose about $43 million this year, though Specific Media expects to remain profitable overall.
Myspace had about 28 million monthly users as of August. Pandora has surpassed 175 million registered users, while Spotify has about 16 million active users.
Specific Media bought Myspace from New York-based News Corp. last year for $35 million with the hope of turning around the struggling site.
Last week, actor and singer Justin Timberlake, who has an ownership stake in Myspace, debuted the site’s new look that focuses more on music, listeners and linking the two. The site is invitation-only at this point, as developers and engineers conduct beta tests.
At its peak Myspace was valued at $580 million.
—Chris Casacchia
