Founding (2011–2012) Monstercat Media was founded on 1 July 2011 by Mike Darlington (born 1989) and Ari Paunonen (born 1989/90), The team moved to their current offices in Vancouver in 2012 after Darlington and Paunonen finished school.
Building the label, first tour, and Marshmello (2013–2016) In July 2014, Monstercat surpassed one million in record sales across the label. When asked about the label's model, Darlington said:People don't need record labels anymore. Artists can do everything on their own. So we either had to do it for them better or provide a platform and marketing tool they can't find on their own. That's where the community concept came for Monstercat. We created a brand that fans can use to discover music and [that] artists can use as a platform for getting their music out there. In December 2014, Monstercat launched Monstercat FM as part of live-streaming service
Twitch's start in music broadcasting. Monstercat FM is a 24/7 radio station-like Twitch stream featuring many of Monstercat's releases from throughout their history as a label. The launch event for the stream was a DJ set by Monstercat artist Stephen Walking. Monstercat FM was eventually added to
YouTube and
Microsoft-owned live-streaming website
Mixer. Since 2015, Monstercat has participated in multiple
music festivals. One such festival was the
Amsterdam Dance Event.
Billboard described their 2015 show as "a three-hour mixer outing". In May 2016, Monstercat signed American producer
Marshmello's single, "
Alone". Its music video has amassed over 2 billion views combined across YouTube, including a label record 161 million views on Monstercat's YouTube channel These views contributed to the artist earning $21 million the year after the video's release. Monstercat also announced their own television channel, Monstercat TV, on the
Pluto TV television platform the same month. In July 2017, Monstercat won
DJ Mags Best Breakthrough Label, competing against other labels such as
Discwoman, Tuskegee Music,
Perspectives Digital and Honey Soundsystem. Monstercat has hosted an annual block party near their headquarters, "Monstercat Compound", since 2017. In November 2017, Monstercat received the label's first
certified platinum record for the 2016 song "
Alone" by
Marshmello. In an email to
Billboard, Mike Darlington expressed his gratitude towards the collaboration and expressed his praise for Marshmello's success. In December 2017, Monstercat was named one of the five best independent dance labels of 2017 by
Billboard. On the week of 1 January 2018, Monstercat announced a split in branding into two distinct themes, "Uncaged" and "Instinct", citing the diversity of their music library. This was accompanied by the creation of a separate channel, named Monstercat: Instinct. The Instinct brand features music that has a prominent focus on melodic aspects, including genres such as
house and
future bass. The change included a retirement of the tri-weekly release schedule in favour of a release schedule of four times a week and a
podcast episode in-between. In September 2018, two weeks before
Rocket League x Monstercat Vol. 4 released, Gavin Johnson, Head of Gaming for Monstercat, spoke of the collaboration between the label and
Psyonix: I met Josh Watson (Esports Operations Manager of Psyonix) at one of our Monstercat gaming-driven events during E3 of 2016. Shortly after, Josh introduced me to their Audio Director Mike Ault as he had a vision for how he wanted to approach music in Rocket League which mirrored that of our ethos with Monstercat. During our first call, it was clear that we shared the same desire to build new platforms for exhibiting artists to be on and grow. The groundwork Rocket League x Monstercat Vol. 1 begun immediately afterwards. In November 2018,
Noisestorm's April Fools' Day single, "
Crab Rave", entered
Billboards
Dance/Electronic Songs chart. The Irish music artist, writing to the magazine, praised its entrance onto the chart, and expressed his approval of its status as an
internet meme.
Other partnerships In 2019, Monstercat partnered with Dutch video game developer
Soedesco to compose music for its video game,
Xenon Racer. The game was released on 26 March of that year. On 14 March 2019, Czech-based indie studio Beat Games released their first paid
downloadable content (DLC) song pack for their
virtual reality rhythm game Beat Saber for
Microsoft Windows and
PlayStation 4. The song pack was released as a partnership with Monstercat, titled
Monstercat Music Pack Vol. 1. It features a collection of 10 tracks from the record label, including songs from
Aero Chord,
Pegboard Nerds,
Muzzy, Stonebank and
Kayzo. The song pack was released for $12.99
USD, (or $1.99 per individual track), with Monstercat offering new subscribers a free month of their Gold Subscription. A crossover music pack with
Rocket League was released in November 2019. In July 2019, to coincide with the label's eighth anniversary, Monstercat announced a partnership with
Linden Labs to bring live music experiences into the developer's virtual reality game,
Sansar. The collaboration, called the
Monstercat: Call of the Wild Experience, began on 12 July, and hosts a live virtual reality alternative to Monstercat's weekly
Call of the Wild radio show. The brand was promoted to focus on the progressive aspect of electronic music, continuing its signature style of progressive house and trance among similar genres. In the deal, Silk Music director Jacob Henry retained his directorial position with the brand. Silk Music's YouTube channel and social media accounts were rebranded to "Monstercat Silk" alongside the announcement (with Monstercat retaining Silk's 24/7 YouTube streams and the
Silk Music Showcase radio show), while Monstercat also announced that with the acquisition, they would be moving to having 6 releases a week, with each brand having 2 releases a week. On 17 September 2021, Monstercat and Westwood Recordings released an eight-track collaborative compilation album titled
Compound 2021, featuring artists such as
The Funk Hunters, Kotek, and Defunk. It also coincides with the fourth year of the Monstercat Compound block party after a hiatus in 2020, which took place a day after the release of the compilation. On 18 August 2023, Monstercat released
Gorilla Warfare, the debut album by DJ Diesel (then just Diesel), the stage name of American basketball player
Shaquille O'Neal.
Create Music Group (2025–present) On 6 May 2025, Darlington and Paunonen sold Monstercat to independent distribution, publishing, and analytics company
Create Music Group, with the founders remaining as advisors to incoming president Daniel Turcotte, vice president Orri Sachar, and finance director Rob Hill. ==Key people==