Artist Growth
 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Music technology, SaaS |
| Founded | 2011, Nashville, Tennessee |
| Founders | Matt Urmy, Jonathan Sexton |
| Headquarters | Nashville, Tennessee, United States |
Key people | Matt Urmy (Co-founder & CEO) |
| Website | artistgrowth |
Artist Growth is an American software company headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, that develops a cloud-based management platform specifically designed for the music industry. The platform is used by artist managers, record labels, talent agencies, touring and production personnel to organize scheduling, event logistics, project workflows, financial tracking, and artist data. It is available on web, iOS, and Android.[1]
The company was founded in 2011 by singer-songwriter and entrepreneur Matt Urmy and Jonathan Sexton. A prototype launched in 2012[2] and a desktop version followed in 2013.[3] It was named Best Music App by MTV's O Music Awards[4] and was featured as Gizmodo's App of the Day in 2012.[5] In 2018, Pinnacle Financial Partners announced an investment in the company.[6]
Among its reported customers are major record labels and management companies including Capitol Records, Republic Records, Def Jam Recordings, Warner Records, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, BMG, Concord Music Group, Roc Nation, and William Morris Endeavor (WME).[7][8]
History
[edit]Founding and early development
[edit]Matt Urmy, a Nashville-based singer-songwriter who had toured and recorded throughout the 2000s, co-founded Artist Growth with Jonathan Sexton in 2011. Urmy has described the impetus for the company as frustration with the industry's reliance on disconnected spreadsheets, email chains, and paper documents to manage artists' business operations.[9]
The company launched publicly in early 2012 at an event held at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, attended by artists including Vince Gill, Steve Winwood, Buddy Miller, and Bill Lloyd, as well as Nashville Mayor Karl Dean. Cowboy Jack Clement performed at the launch. Speaking to Billboard at the event, Urmy described the platform's purpose: "The higher up they are, the more they want data. So you can quantify how far you've come."[10]
A desktop version of the platform was released in 2013.[3] Billboard profiled Artist Growth the following year in its Music Cities feature on the future of Nashville's technology sector.[8] In October 2012, co-founder Matt Urmy was named to Forbes's "Up and Comers" list.[11]
Growth and institutional adoption
[edit]During the mid-2010s, Artist Growth expanded from primarily serving independent artists and managers to working with major label groups. By 2016, the platform's customer base included labels under Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.[7]
In May 2018, Pinnacle Financial Partners, a Nashville-based bank with a dedicated music, entertainment, and sports division, announced it had taken a stake in Artist Growth.[6] That same year, the company integrated with tour booking agency Rising Star Travel to streamline tour scheduling workflows.[12]
Platform evolution
[edit]The platform has undergone significant expansion beyond its original focus on touring and event logistics. Subsequent versions introduced project management features, a business intelligence layer called AG Intelligence, artist profile and electronic press kit tools, and an enterprise developer program. In 2025, the company released AG 5.0, which included a redesigned project management module, an AI-assisted scheduling ingestion tool called SmartSchedule, and the AG Model Context Protocol (AG MCP), enabling customers to integrate Artist Growth data with external AI systems.[13]
In 2023, Hypepotamus described the platform as having evolved into a tool that helps musicians "think like startup entrepreneurs," noting its adoption across major label structures.[14]
Platform
[edit]Artist Growth is organized into several functional modules. The platform runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and is available on web, iOS, and Android.[1]
Scheduling and event management
[edit]The scheduling module manages the operational details of live events and other business activities across an artist roster. Each event record can store venue information, day-of-show schedules, logistics and travel details, production requirements, contact directories, documents, and financial deal data. Users can view events in calendar form across an entire roster or drill down to individual artists. The platform interoperates natively with Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and Apple Calendar.[13]
An Advanced Event Search feature allows teams to query event records historically and forward-looking by date range, artist, market, location, and user-defined tags.
SmartSchedule, introduced in AG 5.0, is an AI-assisted data entry tool that parses unstructured schedule text — such as pasted itinerary blocks from email — and converts it into structured itinerary entries.
Project management
[edit]As of AG 5.0, the platform includes a project management module supporting tasks, due dates, board and list views, threaded comments, file attachments, and version-controlled asset management with approval workflows. Projects can be linked to roster calendar events. The company has positioned this module as a music-industry alternative to general-purpose tools such as Asana, Monday.com, Airtable, and Trello, noting that those platforms do not support music-file management, event linkage, or multi-roster data models.[13]
Standardized project blueprints allow organizations to templatize recurring workflows, such as album release campaigns or promotional cycles, and deploy them across multiple artists.
Roster management
[edit]Management companies, record labels, and agencies can view scheduling and event data across all artists on their roster from a unified interface, with filtering and drill-down to individual artist calendars.
Artist profiles and electronic press kits
[edit]Each artist or client has a centralized profile that consolidates biographical information, social media analytics, multimedia assets, contacts, and documents. Multiple external-facing electronic press kits (EPKs) can be generated from a single profile with configurable visibility settings, custom URLs, and optional password protection.
AG Intelligence
[edit]AG Intelligence is a business intelligence module that correlates itinerary events and business activities with streaming performance data and social media audience metrics. The tool is designed to allow label and management teams to identify which specific activities — performances, media appearances, marketing campaigns — correspond to measurable changes in streaming and audience figures.[13]
Financials
[edit]The financials module uses a double-entry ledger to track revenue and expenses. It supports projected-versus-actual reporting, budget management, and the attachment of financial records to specific events.[1]
Tickets, guests, and passes
[edit]Artist Growth includes tooling for managing ticket allocation requests, guest lists, and credentials for live events. The system handles request workflows, multi-state approval tracking, automated notifications to requesters, and budget reporting.[1]
Technology
[edit]Infrastructure and security
[edit]The platform runs on Amazon Web Services. Artist Growth holds SOC 2 Type 2 certification across the Security and Privacy Trust Service Criteria and is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).[13] Enterprise customers may elect physically isolated infrastructure with dedicated AWS instances, configurable data residency, and co-admin access for their own IT organizations.
The platform employs a granular user permissions model that allows organizations to configure access at the object and field level across large artist rosters. Single sign-on (SSO) integration is available for enterprise deployments.
API and developer program
[edit]Artist Growth provides a software developer program and a Model Context Protocol implementation (AG MCP) that allows enterprise customers and their engineering teams to integrate Artist Growth's data and functionality into external AI systems, internal dashboards, and custom applications. The AG Developer Program is structured in three tiers: self-serve API access; internal application development on a customer's dedicated instance; and a private marketplace tier under which customers may publish and, with a negotiated revenue-share arrangement, commercialize applications built on Artist Growth infrastructure.
Current third-party integrations include Airtable, Spotify, YouTube, Disco, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), SoundCloud, Bluesky, Apple Music, Bandcamp, Tidal, Songkick, Bandsintown, WME, Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Calendar, and BMI (for set list submission and performance royalty collection).[5] Integrations with atVenu, Shopify, Plaid, Realcount, and Ticketmaster were listed as forthcoming as of 2025.[13]
Ownership and investment
[edit]Artist Growth is a privately held company headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.
The company's early investors included Nashville-based physician and philanthropist Harry Jacobson, former Sony Music Nashville chairman Joe Galante, and Joe Glaser, among others. A seed round of approximately $2 million was documented in 2013. SEC Form D filings were made in 2012 and 2016, though the results of those raises were not publicly disclosed. As of March 2018, state records indicated 56 member-owners of the company.[15]
In May 2018, Pinnacle Financial Partners, a Nashville-based bank with a dedicated music, entertainment, and sports division, announced an equity investment in the company. At the time of the investment, Artist Growth reported approximately 18 employees and 20,000 users.[15]
Reception and recognition
[edit]At launch in 2012, Artist Growth was named Best Music App at MTV's O Music Awards[4] and was selected as Gizmodo's App of the Day, with the publication describing it as a tool for artists to "make some damn money."[5] Fast Company covered the platform's mobile application that year.[16]
In October 2012, Forbes included co-founder Matt Urmy in its "Up and Comers" list.[11]
In its 2014 "Music Cities: The Future of Nashville" feature, Billboard described Artist Growth as part of a cluster of Nashville-based music technology companies reshaping how the industry manages operations.[8]
A 2016 CNBC commentary co-authored by Urmy discussed the transition from performing musician to technology entrepreneur in Nashville.[17]
In 2023, Hypepotamus, a publication covering the Atlanta and Southeast technology ecosystem, reported on Artist Growth's adoption among major labels and its positioning as an enterprise platform for music management.[14]
In 2025, Music Ally published a feature on the company's evolution from a touring application to a broader music business operating platform, noting its SOC 2 Type 2 and GDPR compliance and international expansion.[13]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 "Artist Growth Evolves into Music Industry's Most Advanced All-Encompassing Artist Management Platform". Shore Fire Media. June 13, 2018.
- ↑ Inman, Davis (February 29, 2012). "Artist Growth Wants To Make Your Next Tour Smarter". American Songwriter.
- 1 2 "Artist Growth Helps Users Manage Careers". The Tennessean. March 29, 2013.
- 1 2 "Best Music App". O Music Awards. Archived from the original on 2013-01-26.
- 1 2 3 Chan, Casey (February 21, 2012). "Artist Growth: Become a Real Musician and Make Some Damn Money". Gizmodo.
- 1 2 "Pinnacle invests in artist management software company". Nashville Post. October 4, 2018. Archived from the original on October 4, 2018.
- 1 2 "Music Tech Special: Marketing, Distribution, Touring". American Songwriter. August 2, 2021.
- 1 2 3 Peoples, Glenn (August 7, 2014). "Billboard Music Cities: The Future of Nashville". Billboard.
- ↑ "How Matt Urmy, Entrepreneur, Does It". The New York Times. June 13, 2013.
- ↑ "Backbeat: Vince Gill, Steve Winwood, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean at Artist Growth Launch Party". Billboard. January 17, 2012.
- 1 2 "Forbes Up And Comers: Matt Urmy, Charley Moore, and Shawn Amos". Forbes. October 18, 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-04-08.
- ↑ "Artist Growth Integrates With Rising Star Travel to Streamline Tour Scheduling". Billboard. October 4, 2018.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "The Beat Goes On: How Artist Growth is Orchestrating the Future of Music Business Management". Music Ally. August 19, 2025.
- 1 2 Ehlinger, Maija (March 3, 2023). "Musicians need to think like startup entrepreneurs. This Nashville platform helps them do just that". Hypepotamus.
- 1 2 Capps, Milt (May 23, 2018). "Urmy: Artist Growth's new CEO drives capital raises for roadmap, scaleup". Venture Nashville.
- ↑ "For Those About To Rock: An iPhone App To Organize Tours". Fast Company. April 3, 2012.
- ↑ Urmy, Matt (February 9, 2016). "From struggling musician to tech start-up". CNBC.