During the course of last year, a humungous total of $2.4 billion went into investing in the music industry. The remarkable electronic boom that the industry has felt lately, has warranted a vast number of business transactions, though this does not account for even most of the money.

One of the focal points was platforms which deliver music to the ears of listeners via streaming, such as Spotify, who landed $250 million for growth. Interestingly, they make up more than half of the $406 million forming the total for streaming services.

Now as an average joe, if you thought that was a lot of money, then you’ll be amazed to hear that a deal from Warner Music Group topped the entire streaming total. A whooping $765 million was the sum for Warner’s acquisition of Parlophone Label Group, Chrysalis and EMI operations which all fall under a single umbrella. Given that these companies aren’t strictly geared towards dance music, yet there were plenty of moves made by them that are more in line with the music towards which our focus lies.

Within about 57 deals made, the second largest investment went to SFX Entertainment, who’s concert promotion added up to $480 million. It goes without saying that it was a big year for the company who in a flurry of takeovers acquired ID&T, i-Motion and Totem OneLove Group; all of whom promote dance music events. The other big move of course, was the initial public stock offering which accounted for $280 million for SFX.

Apart from these major deals, a lot of investing went towards start-ups and smaller companies. The most notable being the recently launched Beats Music, who was given a sum of $60 million from Access Industries to help get things rolling. Bop.fm, Songdrop, MFive Labs and Shazam also received sizeable investments.

With all these large sums of money put into these companies, we can be sure that 2014 will surely be a huge year for dance music. The only question though being, can the music industry, more specifically EDM, keep up with it’s growth?

For more details and information head over to Billboard for the full article if you are interested!