VolumoFounded by three long-time friends from Ukraine: Oleksandr Dzyubenko, Anton Severynenko, and Denys Borysov, Volumo is the new online electronic music store which opened in early 2022 and is a remote-first company with branches in the Estonian city of Tallinn and Ukraine.
Together with Anton, they comprehensively saw the problems of the industry and the shortcomings of the existing services. Publishing has always been too complicated, reports and payments take a long time, and too many go-betweens are involved in the chain. Over the years, the industry is increasingly inclined to please the mass audience, neglecting aesthetic and creative aspects and, simultaneously, the interests of artists and sound producers.
Therefore, when Anton and Denys came up with the idea of Volumo for Sasha, they wanted to create more than just “another store.” They aimed for an innovative new-generation product, a site that would first be oriented to the needs of artists and become a convenient, modern working tool for professional DJs and selectors.
Volumo is already fundamentally different from other platforms. It is a curated store where each release is pre-moderated, which makes selecting and searching for music much more pleasant and fast. “We could have quintupled the size of our back catalog right now, but we’re not. The customer’s user experience is important to us. They don’t need to see the same track in ten different releases, compilations, and numerous reissues,” says Anton.
Rooted in a professional music environment, the Volumo team operates on the principle of “getting downloads back on trend.” The practice of downloads has numerous advantages from the viewpoint of monetizing artists’ creativity and ultimately positively affects the quality of new music. It’s a necessary alternative for an entire industry, where only a tiny percentage of artists release their releases on vinyl. In contrast, millions of other releases fall into the “grey area” of streaming, focusing on purely commercial music and tiny payout rates.
Some might say Volumo’s strategy is too romantic, but it’s working well. In just one year, Volumo signed an agreement with many distributors, including FUGA, Symphonic, and Triple Vision. Their catalog includes almost 30,000 artists and 3,000 labels from over a hundred countries. Volumo’s trio of founders emphasize that they are not looking for venture capital investment or planning a quick exit, which often kills the initial idea and vision of many great projects. So, there is no doubt that they will “get downloads back on trend.”
