Artlist is a company that provides cutting-edge creative tools and assets that inspire people to create. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Artlist co-founder and co-CEO Ira Belsky to learn more about the company.
Ira Belsky’s Background
What is Ira Belsky’s background? Belsky said:
“I was born and raised in a family of farmers. During my childhood, I felt connected to my artistic side, constantly drawing and attracted to the world of video and filmmaking. One of my first experiences with videography and filmmaking was working as a freelance video filmmaker, editor, and producer. I was actually a self-taught filmmaker with a passion for creating beautiful and stimulating visuals.”
Formation Of Artlist
How did the idea for the company come together? Belsky shared:
“As a filmmaker myself, I recognized a gap in the film industry between finding high quality music, with a simple license, and an affordable price. You either had low-quality music, or the legal terms were complicated for individuals who don’t deal with them regularly, or high-quality music priced beyond the reach of most freelancers. I wanted to bridge that gap by providing high-quality content with a simple license at an affordable price.”
“With two talented musician friends, Assaf Ayalon and Eyal Raz, and a friend from the technological side who today serves as co-CEO, Itzik Elbaz, we decided to start a website with a catalog of quality music at an affordable price. “
“In 2016, we transformed this absence within the creative industry and created Artlist, which offered a licensed music catalog under an innovative subscription model. The company’s model essentially eliminated the need for the independent video editors to legally deal with the various artists, managers, and labels. The four of us built a website with a catalog of music and within two weeks, the company was already profitable, highlighting the clear necessity for a platform with these capabilities. From there it just kept growing, adding SFX, footage, templates, plugins, and more digital tools and assets to our catalog at a very fast pace, and it is now a successful global company with more than 26M users and over 2.5 million high-quality assets.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Belsky’s favorite memory working for the company so far? Belsky reflected:
“A few years ago, one of the artists we worked with posted a very exciting message on Instagram, sharing that he and his wife bought a house thanks to the royalties he received from Artlist. This moving story made me realize that we’re doing exactly what we’ve set out to do: supporting artists and giving them the opportunity to make a living from their art.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Belsky explained:
“Artlist is a leading creative technology company providing top global brands and individual creators with a catalog of over 2.5 million professional, high-quality, and exclusive digital assets and tools for video creation made by award-winning artists. Over 26 million users, including notable organizations like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Calvin Klein, trust Artlist as a complete solution for video creation. Artlist empowers creators by allowing unlimited usage and a simple global license suitable for any project under a subscription-based model.”
“Artlist’s mission is to empower people to create without limits, through its two products: Artlist, an all-in-one platform for video creation, including high-quality and curated royalty-free music, SFX, footage, templates, plugins, and an AI voiceover generator with an exclusive voice catalog. The second product is MotionArray, the ultimate catalog for creators, including high-quality video templates by the world’s top motion designers, presets, plugins, music, SFX, stock footage, graphics for design, motion graphics, and stock photos. These catalogs are constantly updated through contributions from a global team of world-class artists.”
“Artlist has been recognized as a top startup by Wired and LinkedIn.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Belsky and the team face in building the company? Belsky acknowledged:
“When integrating new technologies, we want to make sure it’s done in a way that truly adds value for our users. For instance, when implementing our new AI voiceover feature, we aimed to ensure it genuinely enhanced the video creation process and provide our users with a unique and high quality catalog of voices. Another challenge was expanding our total addressable market (TAM) beyond our existing audience. Initially, we offered only an annual subscription, which we eventually recognized as limiting our reach. To address this, we introduced a monthly subscription tier primarily targeting social media creators.”
“A survey we conducted revealed that most of our users managed more than one channel per platform, giving us the confidence to proceed with this offering. This move broadened our reach and better met the needs of creators seeking more flexible subscription options.”
Evolution Of Artlist’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Belsky noted:
“As a creative technology company, we’ve enhanced our offerings throughout the years in order to be the best all-in-one asset platform for brands and creators looking to reach their desired audiences in a cost effective way. While the company initially started with just a music catalog, today, Artlist’s portfolio contains high-quality music, SFX, footage, templates, plugins, and most recently, AI voiceover generators. We are constantly looking to the evolving needs of our users to find ways to enhance the platform.”
“Specifically with the AI voice generator offering, we knew that creators want their content to be compelling, authentic, and resonate with audiences, so we’ve created an exclusive voice catalog together with leading professional voice actors. This new offering keeps providing our users with creative freedom.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Belsky cited:
“As previously mentioned, Artlist has seen an impressive amount of growth very quickly. Shortly after our founding in 2016, the company had its first external capital raise from Elephant Partners. In 2019 we launched Artgrid, a large catalog of professional-grade stock footage.”
“The next big year for Artlist was in 2020 when we added a SFX catalog, and acquired Motion Array, which helped us add video templates to the platform. During this year we also had another capital raise, this time from KKR. In 2021 we acquired FXhome and added video, VFX and image editing software tools to our already extensive catalog of high-quality creative assets, as a significant step towards becoming a 360 solution for the next generation of content creators.”
“In 2022, we wanted to simplify our offerings and interface, so we created Artlist MAX, which consolidated our features for video creators into a single brand, and this was ultimately the catalyst for how we started our B2B solution. With this, Artlist continued to double down on business efforts and opened our NYC office, in addition to our offices in the UK and Israel.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Belsky about customer success stories, he highlighted:
— Expedia, one of the world’s largest travel platforms, has partnered with Artlist to enhance their creative process and inspire travelers through their video content. The collaboration has allowed Expedia’s in-house creative studio to access a wide variety of high-quality tracks, sound effects, and stock footage, saving them 20% more time on sourcing and vetting audio for their projects. Artlist’s comprehensive licensing and user-friendly platform have streamlined Expedia’s workflow, enabling them to focus more on storytelling and audience engagement, leading to a renewal of their partnership after a successful first year. Expedia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9yfAqd93V8
— monday.com, a work operating system, utilizes Artlist’ intuitive for a variety of content creation needs, which include music and sound effects in their brand storytelling. Artlist’s intuitive platform and vast options for finding the right audio quickly, and help bring their creative ideas to life efficiently, especially when working on tight schedules and deadlines monday.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdyJWciPTy4
— Wes Writer, also known as Skrxlla, experienced a meteoric rise in his music career when he went from zero to 70,000 monthly Spotify listeners in just one week, thanks to his collaboration with Artlist. Through Artlist’s platform, Wes’s music was featured in videos that garnered over 200 million views, enabling him to become a full-time musician working from home and supporting his family through his passion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ol3gBF5Q3Y
— Working with Artlist, Scootie Wop expanded his reach and opened new opportunities for his career, including signing a deal with Sony. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em-xO-iQDo&t=18s
Funding
When asking Belsky about the company’s funding, he revealed:
“As previously mentioned, once Artlist first launched in 2016, the company’s growth was fast and furious. In 2020, we raised $48 million in a financing round led by the US-based KKR with participation from investor Elephant Partners who led Artlist’s funding round in 2018. In 2022, Artlist reached $100M in ARR.In addition to impressive funding rounds early on, in 2020, Artlist acquired Motion Array, a digital assets marketplace platform, for $65 million, and in 2021, the company acquired FXhome, a developer in the video and image software industry.”
“Without these key investments and acquisitions, Artlist would not have achieved this success it has so quickly.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Belsky assessed:
“As of 2024, the global creator economy is worth over $150 billion, and according to Goldman Sachs, it will grow to half-a-trillion dollars by 2027. This definitely highlights the increased need for content creation and video presence tools, like Artlist. It is also more important than ever to democratize advanced technologies that enhance creator’s content.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Belsky affirmed:
“Artlist is the all-in-one platform offering its users with high quality digital assets that includes everything creators need to create the best video, in one place. Our features, which are constantly being added or updated seamlessly integrate into existing workflows, eliminating the need for creators to toggle between platforms. Specifically with our new AI voiceover generator feature, brands and creators can now enrich their videos with professional-grade narrations, elevating the quality of their content and captivating audiences like never before with an array of exclusive voices at their fingertips.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Belsky concluded:
“Artlist’s goal is continue being a leader in empowering creativity, and providing brands and creators with everything needed to create the best videos.”
“We also aim to integrate new technologies, similar to our AI voiceover feature, in a sustainable and cost effective way that makes sense for our users. We always try to stick to this core mission and go back to what our users need and want, as well as capitalize on the current technology content landscape trends.”
