Photo Credit: Cottonbro Studios

When it comes to Shamrock Capital’s acquisition of Taylor Swift’s recorded catalog, let’s be honest: it didn’t even seem like a good idea at the time. But is there more frothy fallout ahead when it comes to music IP?

Dialing back to late 2020, the collective industry head-scratching elevated when Shamrock Capital swooped in to buy Taylor Swift’s first six album masters for $300 million plus. The seller was none other than Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings, who dropped the sullied asset after just 16 months of migraine-inducing ownership.

Of course, it’s always fun to buy the most sizzling catalog on the block. But to say there were red flags around this IP acquisition would be a drastic understatement.

For starters, Swift herself was already steam-rolling forward with her now vast catalog of Taylor’s Version remakes, complete with a fight-the-industry-oppressor narrative to fuel the Swiftie mob. Beyond the juicy targets of Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta, Big Machine staffers were also getting harassed — and woe to any music company or investment house caught in those crosshairs.

Hence Scooter’s EJECT button — or at least part of the explanation for it. Enter Shamrock, which quickly found itself battling duplicate recorded music versions and a hostile artist. That’s tricky enough to manage, but given the edge-case nature of this calamity, building longer-term revenue projections seemed downright devilish. It was all unfortunately unprecedented, particularly for an IP asset of that size.

Then again, investment firms will tolerate almost any level of pain for the right return. This one – involving IP from one of the biggest musicians in history – apparently wasn’t worth it.

The bad math and endless headaches might explain the quick reversion sale – which may have also carried a boulder-off-shoulder post-signing high. Braun got out after 16 months — and now, Shamrock is bowing out after four-and-a-half years. None of that screams long-term portfolio jewel, but hey – now Taylor’s the proud owner of her own original recordings.

That’s great news for Taylor, but is Shamrock’s dump-off the latest episode in a protracted frothy fallout?

Hipgnosis was its own slow-motion train wreck, with execs accusing Massarsky n’ Merc of juicing up the valuations of catalogs into the stratosphere. But what about the rest of the multi-billion dollar music IP ecosystem?

That’s a tricky one, particularly in the daily rollercoaster of America’s economy du jour. Indeed, complementing the stomach-turning stock market is an ‘everything bubble’ terrain replete with endless possible ‘pops’ – including potential crashes in crypto, real estate, bonds, and maybe even music IP.

That has industry players feeling a bit nervous, according to our latest off-the-record convos. There’s still a significant amount of money ready to be deployed on catalogs, and specialized plays involving smaller catalogs and distinct rights tranches continue to emerge.

But is there a bigger correction ahead for music IP?

One problem recently outlined to DMN: even catalogs from storied artists like Bob Dylan (whose total publishing and recording catalog sold for as much as $600 million) only have so many recognizable hits—and sync-able tracks.

Indeed, b-sides blow up and get placed all the time (see Connie Francis’ ‘Pretty Little Baby’ and the Pointer Sisters ‘Hot Together’ for the latest exhibits). But how many people care about the hundreds of lesser-known tracks from legendary artists like Dylan?

In that context, perhaps the Taylor sale speaks volumes – particularly after such a short carriage period by Shamrock.

Not to harsh anyone’s mellow, though perhaps a measured cool-down is the best outcome in this terrain. Indeed, a soft landing might be the luckiest outcome we can get.

Meanwhile, music IP and other hot-button music and money concepts are on tap for next week’s Music Investor Conference, or MIC, in New York, where dealmakers will rub elbows and prognosticate on what’s next. That will be complemented by A2IM’s Indie Week confab in Times Square – with IP sure to receive healthy discussion time at both.

See ya there.

Rezonate Music Rights co-founders Tom Tyler (left) and Cam Blackwood. Photo Credit: Rezonate

Does the music IP arena have room for another investor? Rezonate Music Rights believes so, and it’s set sail with a $150 million war chest as well as a focus on producer catalogs.

Rezonate announced its official launch – and several already-wrapped plays – today. Founded by producer Cam Blackwood and former London Stock Exchange Group higher-up Tom Tyler, the self-described “leading solution for music producers rights acquisition” secured the $150 million tranche from Europe’s Bridgepoint Credit.

Under that investment, Bridgepoint took “a minority stake in Rezonate’s management company,” per the catalog buyer, which has offices in London and Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, having evidently started pursuing deals ahead of its formal launch, Rezonate pointed to signed-and-sealed catalog agreements with producers Lorna Blackwood, Mark Crew, James Earp, and Jussi Karvinen (aka Jussifer).

Those professionals have credits on tracks released by Lewis Capaldi, Bebe Rexha, Kelly Clarkson, The Wombats, Dua Lipa, Katy Perry, and Demi Lovato, to name just some. And as Rezonate describes things, a number of additional catalog agreements are forthcoming.

“This partnership with Bridgepoint is a strong endorsement of Rezonate’s vision and the value we bring to music producers,” Blackwood and Tyler added in a joint statement. “With such substantial firepower we can significantly accelerate our growth plans and continue to set new standards in the industry, ensuring producers are at the heart of every decision we make.

“We are excited to bring a fresh and artist-aligned approach to the royalties space, starting with an incredible day-one catalogue that includes some of the most iconic tracks of the last four decades,” concluded Tyler and Blackwood.

Beyond straight IP purchases, Rezonate also offers “funding and mentorship to emerging talent,” producer-geared networking opportunities, and “accurate and transparent music catalogue valuations,” its website shows.

(On the valuation side, worth reiterating is that HarbourView last week tapped Sweden’s Chapter Two to “facilitate” a Rodney Jerkins IP buyout. Formerly Anotherblock, Chapter Two is now touting a collection of catalog-tech solutions.)

In the bigger picture, it’s safe to say that the catalog space remains flush with capital – even if the rights-acquisition game is more specialized than ever.

On the funding front, 2025’s first five months delivered blockbuster investments in the work of Notorious B.I.G. and others – not to mention sizable capital disclosures from Intercept Music, Pophouse Entertainment, GoldState Music, Raven Music, and more.

Regarding specialization, Duetti is zeroing in on indie rights, to name one example, while a film and TV joint venture is a seemingly significant component of DJ Khaled’s Influence Media catalog sale. Different players yet are opting to spearhead multifaceted deals at the intersection of emerging markets and regionally prominent IP.

Stockholm, Sweden, where MAIA Universe (previously Freshsound) is headquartered. Photo Credit: Anna Hunko

Stockholm-based sync platform MAIA Universe (formerly Freshsound) has scored north of $1.13 million in funding from backers including Max Martin.

MAIA Universe CEO David Wille confirmed the €1 million raise — and the MxM owner Martin’s support — on LinkedIn. According to that disclosure, Stockholm VC Zenith Ventures, another existing stakeholder in Aligned Ventures, and several others yet likewise participated.

The Kobalt vet Wille – who joined MAIA shortly following the exit of co-founder and COO Sara Larsson – also touted his current company’s agreements with Sony Music UK, Warner Chappell, and self-described “leading independent” Playground Music.

(Per her LinkedIn profile, Larsson is currently CEO of Northfork, which says it makes “recipes and meal plans shoppable through customized technology solutions.” Separately, MAIA’s board has added former Netflix Nordics comms higher-up Malin Cumzelius.)

As things stand, MAIA Universe’s licensing offering is said to feature over 9,000 songs recorded by more than 2,200 artists. Recent placements include Alphaville’s “A Victory of Love” in a Polestar spot as well as Gabriels’ “Remember Me” in an advert for David Beckham’s BOSS collection, the website indicates.

With today’s funding influx, Freshsound/MAIA Universe has secured the better part of $5 million in publicly confirmed capital, data from DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker shows.

And in the bigger picture, against the backdrop of AI’s rapid ascent, it probably goes without saying that competition is stiffer than ever in the sync arena. For prolific musicians smartly matching their music against placement opportunities, however, organization is key — especially given the tight turnaround times and quick changes often demanded by music supervisors.

“Managing files should never be a barrier to creativity,” explains Vivek Patel, CEO of OmMuse, a platform that enables artists to securely manage track versions, collaborate with anyone across the globe, and easily distribute their tracks. “A well-structured storage system prevents lost tracks, endless file versions, and workflow interruptions—allowing artists to stay focused on making music.”

Back to the financial picture at MAIA: in its coverage of MAIA Universe’s newly obtained capital, Sweden’s Breakit pointed to 2023 turnover of SEK 800,000 (currently $83,085) for the platform.

That same year, the startup is said to have experienced “a negative result of just over SEK 9 million” ($934,748 at present).

Bearing in mind these numbers and the well-entrenched positioning of certain sync players, Amsterdam’s Ringo earlier in May rolled out a fresh beta version. As summed up by execs, the improved product includes a “Sync Search Assistant button” that is acting as a “precursor to an upcoming recommendation engine.”

Meanwhile, Lickd is apparently pulling out all the stops with a “Brand New Affiliate Scheme” under which it says one can “earn $25 for every successful referral.” A cursory glance at the appropriate terms shows that “successful referral” does, in fact, refer to any instance when creators sign up and pay for the service via one of the relevant links.

Ticketing platform XP has announced a $6.2 million raise. Photo Credit: Jessica Christian

Web3 ticketing platform XP has announced a $6.2 million raise and doubled down on plans “to build the most fulfilling ticketing experience for fans.”

The year-old ticket-resale marketplace unveiled the funding in a blog post as well as a formal release. Founded and led by former Grubhub exec Michael Saunders, XP says it “puts fans first with transparent, fair-market prices and tech-forward ticketing innovations.”

Now, the company has a cool $6.2 million at its disposal to continue expanding those innovations, among them an AI-powered price-comparison extension.

New York City-based Blockchange Ventures, which per its website backs “founders with visions as big and bold as the Blockchain itself,” led XP’s latest raise. Additionally, the round drew support from crypto-minded investment manager L1D and David Kalk’s Reflexive Capital.

Addressing his business’s raise, the XP head Saunders called out the many competitors operating in the evidently lucrative ticketing space.

“Buying tickets shouldn’t feel like you’re getting taken advantage of,” said Saunders, who’s also at the helm of Captain Labs, the Solana-focused tech studio behind XP.

“Fandom is an integral part of a person’s identity, and yet most platforms treat fans like transactions. We believe fans deserve better—and that starts with recognizing and rewarding fans’ loyalty and passion,” concluded Saunders, whose platform is said to boast “millions of dollars in annualized ticket sales.”

While there’s certainly something to be said for rewarding fans, logic suggests that lowering prices is the best way to stand out in the increasingly crowded live-entertainment arena. On this front, XP indicated that its model means customers can “save up to 30%…compared to the same seats listed on other resale marketplaces.”

As things stand, these resale marketplaces aren’t limited to well-entrenched players like Live Nation’s Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, the possibly-for-sale Vivid Seats, and StubHub.

Back in August 2024, TickPick scored a cool quarter of a billion dollars in funding, and the U.K.’s Seat Unique announced a close to $20 million extended Series A. Then, Amsterdam’s Celebratix in November pulled down about $1.2 million and emphasized a goal of bringing its blockchain tech to several international markets.

In other words, competition is fiercer than ever in ticketing, where regulatory scrutiny isn’t letting up. Most conspicuously, that refers to the DOJ’s apparently ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

But the same companies are also the subject of at least one government crackdown across the pond. Returning to the States, a DOJ inquiry into “unfair and anticompetitive” live/ticketing practices is in full swing, and not-so-subtle anonymous sources have pointed to a possible criminal antitrust probe targeting Live Nation and AEG alike.

Intercept Music has announced a $50 million song rights partnership. Photo Credit: Casey Botticello

Let the song rights purchases continue: Intercept Music has announced $50 million in fresh catalog funding, and “several initial acquisitions” are said to be in the works.

According to the San Francisco-headquartered distributor and marketer, the sizable tranche resulted from a “private partnership.” Beyond this, Intercept Music didn’t provide too many details about the tie-up.

But it did confirm that founder and chairman Ralph Tashjian is a “co-investor and strategic advisor in the partnership.” Additionally, Intercept indicated that it’ll target U.S. and Latin catalogs in particular.

(Longtime Universal Music Mexico exec Martín Roca signed on with Intercept in February as Mexico GM. The same month, eight-year Believe vet Raquel Martins, who’s based in Spain, began as a YouTube music-services advisor, and the namesake head of Bob Frank Entertainment joined the board.)

The plays could involve “full or partial rights” in IP, the seven-year-old company said, acknowledging as well a special focus on bodies of work “with untapped or under-leveraged revenue.”

From there, the buyer would by its own description utilize “proprietary technology, predictive analytics and [its] targeted marketing portal to amplify both earnings and audience reach.”

“This is more than just a funding deal—it’s a commitment to restructuring music rights management,” Intercept CEO Tod Turner elaborated. “This partnership is a significant endorsement of our platform and strategy allowing us to combine capital with cutting-edge technology to unlock more value for artists, songwriters, and catalog owners, while accelerating our growth into the Latin and U.S. markets.”

Lastly, in terms of the funding’s specifics, Intercept spelled out that it intends to start wrapping deals sooner rather than later. “Intercept’s catalog management division will begin deploying capital immediately,” the business relayed, “with several initial acquisitions already under review.”

It’ll be worth keeping an eye out for related announcements – and catalog purchases from different companies – moving forward. Despite the mountain of music IP deals that have wrapped, Intercept certainly isn’t alone in looking to scoop up song rights.

Following 2024’s numerous catalog transactions and billions in funding, 2025’s initial four months delivered massive capital disclosures from Duetti ($200 million), Aquarian and Raven Capital ($250 million), and Pophouse Entertainment ($1.3 billion, about 30% of which has been deployed), to name a few.

Meanwhile, 2025’s many catalog deals (all compiled in DMN Pro’s Music IP Acquisition Tracker) extend to the work of Deadmau5, Snow Patrol, Morgan Wallen, DJ Khaled, Notorious B.I.G., T-Pain, and many others.

Photo Credit: Infinite Reality

Hot on the heels of its jaw-dropping $207 million Napster acquisition, Infinite Reality has announced the acquisition of AI company Touchcast for $500 million (i.e., half-a-billion dollars) in a combination of cash and stock.

The acquisition is Infinite Reality’s largest yet, and the transaction agreement technically values the company at $15.5 billion. Touchcast’s agentic AI platform, known as Mentorverse, generates AI ‘mentors’ who engage in face-to-face video conversations.

Unlike traditional chatbots or static web experiences, they also combine consistent personalities with domain expertise to deliver guidance through multimodal interactions — according to the pitch.

Sounds interesting, though is that worth $500 million, i.e., half-a-billion bucks? Multiple music industry execs are still puzzled at why Napster fetched $207 million from Infinite Reality, particularly given the platform’s scant subscriber base, unpaid royalties, and waning brand equity — among other issues.

According to the latest acquisition description, the integration of Touchcast’s technology across Infinite Reality’s portfolio of products and services will enable customers to tap AI agents for a number of tasks that drive user engagement, customer support, and sales.

For example, within Napster, Touchcast tech could enable subscribers to generate immersive social listening spaces and leverage AI agents for music playlisting, community management, and music trivia, among other engaging features.

Meanwhile, Touchcast says it’s built on OpenAI and delivered on Microsoft Azure via a $50 million strategic partnership that provides a suite of AI delivery systems to improve response times.

Touchcast says its platform is turning what once required entire teams and years of work into one-click solutions with multiple products ranging from AI mentors to transforming websites into interactive AI experiences and more. The company holds 27 patents related to AI and interactive video technology, including systems for coordinated presentations, video conferencing enhancements, and intelligent virtual assistant systems.

“The acquisition of Touchcast marks our largest transaction thus far, and represents a perfect continuation of our strategic growth trajectory, building on the momentum from the iconic Napster acquisition and recent $3 billion funding round,” says Amish Shah, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer, Infinite Reality.

“The addition of Touchcast’s agentic AI technology serves as a powerful building block for our platform as we look to provide our customers with the tools they need to succeed in the modern AI-powered era.”

The Los Angeles headquarters of Ares Management Corporation, which has backed GoldState Music in a $500 million round. Photo Credit: Hathaway Dinwiddie

About five months after acquiring a reported $200 million worth of catalogs, GoldState Music has announced a $500 million strategic-capital raise.

West Palm Beach-based GoldState disclosed that half-billion-dollar round in a formal release today. The Charles Goldstuck-founded company attributed part of the sizable sum to a “structured capital facility” co-led by Northleaf Capital Partners and Ares Management (NYSE: ARES).

(Hardly a stranger to music IP, Northleaf in October 2021 led a $500 million raise for Spirit Music parent Lyric Capital, which went on to reveal an $800 million catalog fund in February 2023.)

Meanwhile, three-year-old GoldState also attributed a portion of the massive tranche to “separately raised leverage” – albeit without diving into the fundraising particulars at hand.

In any event, Goldstuck emphasized plans to bankroll additional IP deals yet with the newly obtained funding. Though that might appear obvious, GoldState clarified that the music space and catalogs are its “primary” – not sole – focus.

As spelled out by the business, it’s open to backing “enterprises in need of growth and expansion capital, as well as emerging music technology.”

“Our new relationship with Northleaf and Ares marks the next step in the evolution of our music investing strategy,” said the Hitco Entertainment founder Goldstuck. “This additional capital will enable us to further accelerate our ability to capitalize on increasing demand for music and build a diversified portfolio of music assets across artists and genres.

“As leading institutional investors, Northleaf and Ares bring critical experience that will support GoldState’s continued growth and differentiation to the benefit of our artists, investors and other stakeholders,” the former BMG exec finished.

Bigger picture, despite the ongoing streaming-growth slowdown and the many already-wrapped catalog deals, it’s safe to say investors remain interested in music IP.

To be sure, Pophouse Entertainment announced a $1.3 billion fund of its own to close out March, which also delivered a $250 million song-rights JV (Raven Music Partners) from Aquarian and Raven Capital as well as $200 million in debt funding for Duetti.

On the transactions side, DMN Pro’s Music IP Acquisition Tracker registered March investments from Primary Wave (which took a stake in the Notorious B.I.G. catalog at a reported $200 million overall valuation), Create Music Group (which is said to have spent $55 million on Deadmau5’s body of work), and more.

(Incidentally, GoldState/Goldstuck participated in Create’s $165 million Flexpoint Ford-led round back in June 2024.)

Especially because the majors, BMG, Reservoir, and other well-entrenched parties are likewise on the hunt for song rights, it’s safe to say the coming months (and probably years) will bring a steady stream of deals.

Core Music Industry Funding, 2020-2025 (Q1) (Source: DMN Pro, Digital Music News)

Driven by a monstrous Pophouse Entertainment infusion, music industry funding is now on a breakneck pace in 2025. According to rounds captured and compiled in DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker, total core funding has surpassed $1.9 billion, potentially the start of a record-setting year.

Just last month, DMN Pro took the temperature on core music industry funding for January and February. The conclusion? Total core funding had quickly surpassed $500 million, a solid start but not enough to keep pace with strong 2023 and 2024 funding levels.

Now, that picture is quickly changing, with 2025 potentially on track to set funding records.

Report Table of Contents

I. The Q1 2025 Music Industry Funding Wrap: A Review of the Rounds

II. Core vs. Non-Core Distinctions: Tangential Funding Raises Impacting the Music Industry

III. The Broader Music Investment Look: 2020-2025 (Complete With Optimistic 2025 Projections)

IV. A Vastly Different 2025 Landscape: Will Music Investment Thrive In the Chaos?

The following report is for DMN Pro subscribers only. Please do not redistribute — thank you!

Photo: Luis Quintero

Changes are afoot in the music industry conference circuit.

You’re probably too young to remember the decadent days of MIDEM in the South of France, though these days, look no further than SXSW for shifts in the modern-day music conference landscape. Suddenly, South-by — once an obligatory time- and budget-drainer — looks to be shedding attendees.

Ahead of the controversial 2026 programming changes, DMN’s on-the-ground team noticed something funny this year: the crowds were distinctively thinner in Austin. Blame it on mass label layoffs, more profit-conscious companies, a shift away from low-productivity debauchery — or heck, the rain — but SXSW doesn’t look like it’s heading north in terms of its 2026 attendance.

Those favoring the kvetch note that the days of a music-focused, expertly-curated SXSW are over. The showcases have declined, according to one disaffected A&R exec, with another lamenting the long flight for an overly-diluted tech/film/eco/music/whatever blob of a party — I mean, ‘conference’.

If the industry is looking for something more serious, that theoretically plays into the hands of Music Biz. But was a Nashville uproot to Atlanta a good call?

That’s a question we’ll be able to answer in a few weeks. But why the switch?

DMN has learned that Music Biz had always intended to switch cities yearly, but COVID planted the event in Nashville for a prolonged stretch. But given the growing momentum of Music Biz and its association with Music City, was shifting to Atlanta the wise play?

Aside from logistical arguments, there’s also a pressing political reason for keeping the action in Nashville. While we loathe to wade into politics, the industry is now facing some distinct challenges trying to get the Trump Administration and Republicans to care about urgent issues like AI and copyright.

Time couldn’t be more critical, though insiders lament that similarly-situated Hollywood is getting nowhere on critically important AI and IP-related concerns, for obvious reasons. But maybe there’s a strategic answer to this riddle.

The logic goes something like this: Hollywood is certainly a related industry, but music isn’t as fixed geographically — or politically. During his first term, Trump was flanked by country superstars and a certain Detroit rocker when he signed the Music Modernization Act (MMA). Given that success, is Tennessee the perfect hub for lobbying this administration and Congress again — particularly given the shutout being experienced by Hollywood and others on the wrong side of this political aisle?

Meanwhile, speaking of Capitol Hill fixers, National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) topper David Israelite could be building the industry’s next ‘It’ conference.

Israelite’s Music Investor Conference (MIC) is now in its third year, kicking off this June in Manhattan. But this event has a totally different game plan involving limited capacity and an invite-only, serious dealmaking crowd. That’s generating some surprisingly nice pre-event buzz, with New York offering a more serious backdrop. Are we looking at a budding Davos for music taking shape?

So far, we’re hearing that MIC isn’t yet getting the ‘heavy heavies’ like UMG titan Lucian Grainge — at least en masse — though a fairly influential cast of folks are expected to attend again this year (at least based on the 2024 list).

Meanwhile, it’s tricky to get a read on future industry crowds given a tough year+ of layoffs.

For obvious reasons, labels and tech bros like to keep layoffs on the hush, though heavy downsizing at mega-companies like Spotify and WMG could be trimming crowds at future industry conferences. Was SXSW just a preview of what a leaner business looks like?

On the flip side, a lot of money has been pouring into this industry. As of mid-April, north of $2 billion worth of investments have dropped in 2025 alone, according to DMN Pro’s latest tallies. Will that tailwind mark the start of a surprisingly bullish 2025 for the music business despite the economic turbulence of late?

That topic and more coming to a music conference panel near you.

A compendium of music industry funding rounds across every sub-sector and investment stage.

¹On Sesh’s round: Miura contributed $2.45 million (35%) per Sesh executive Andrew Sutton; Miura separately would not confirm their contribution to DMN. Additionally, Sesh would not disclose additional investors participating or valuation details.

Photo Credit: Morgan Wallen and Blodin Ukella

Blodin Ukella and Morgan Wallen’s Ryl Company receives $15 million in Series B funding, marking $30 million in growth equity in total.

Created in 2022, Morgan Wallen and Blodin Ukella’s Ryl Company held a Series A funding round in 2024, netting $7.5 million. The new funds will help fast track the tea company’s expansion, marketing campaigns, and product creation.

The funding will also get Ryl Tea into over 40,000 stores by the end of the year, including major chains like Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, Costco, Publix, HEB, Meijer, 7-Eleven, and more. Further, these investments will help Ryl expand its team to over 100 employees by year’s end; the company started with just nine employees when it launched in 2023.

“The Ryl Company is surging into an exciting phase of hyper-growth, and this capital raise will assist us in scaling to new heights, especially as we expand our retail presence and national distribution,” said Leigh Feuerstein, Chairman of the Ryl Company.

“Under the direction of Founder and CEO Blodin Ukella, the team’s deep connection with consumers has set the stage for great success. Blodin is a remarkable leader with a clear vision and indefatigable energy, and we’re backing him with unbridled confidence in his ability to fuel Ryl’s expansion.”

The Series B funding round included investments from Morgan Wallen, Get Engaged Media’s Cam Fordham, Alex Dermer, Ben Hiott, Austin Neal of Sticks Management, and Seth England of Big Loud Records.

“I’ve been a believer in Ryl Tea from the beginning and keep them stocked at home and while touring out on the road,” said Wallen. “It’s exciting to see the brand continue to expand and grow, and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

Ryl Tea’s leadership team has extensive experience in building and scaling beverage brands. Ukella, former Chief Strategy Officer at OWYN, which was acquired by The Simply Good Foods Company, is a former Data Scientist at Bai. He is joined by President Ken Kurtz, known for his leadership as former President of Bai, which was acquired by Dr Pepper Snapple Group, and is a former SVP of Fiji Water. Chief Operating Officer Ruben Rafaeli previously served as COO at Crook & Marker, and SVP of Operations at Bai.

“This round isn’t just a financial milestone — it’s a signal of confidence in our mission, our momentum, and our belief that Ryl Tea is on track to redefine what a modern beverage brand can be,” says Ukella. “We are in the ‘leap’ phase of our business journey — scaling rapidly with new distribution channels, exciting marketing initiatives and product development. This investment will help us expand our offerings and expand our distribution by 4x, all while maintaining the same level of quality and commitment to our customers’ health and well-being.”

A breakdown of cumulative Spotify (SPOT) stock cash-outs by top executives and board members (DMN Pro, SEC filings)

For Spotify’s top brass and insiders, it’s been a very lucrative few years. But just how much money is being cashed out? According to nearly 100 SEC documents compiled and examined by DMN Pro, total cashouts by Spotify execs and board members – mostly over the past two years – are approaching $1.8 billion, thanks to a stunning run-up in SPOT’s valuation since 2023.

Spotify is one of the music industry’s biggest success stories of the past decade — and one of the most lucrative for its top executives, investors, and other other top insiders. After a turnaround towards profitability that started in 2023, SPOT enjoyed an unprecedented surge in share valuation – with top shareholders like CEO Daniel Ek cashing out to capture the gains.

In this report, DMN Pro takes a look at just how much money has been generated from Spotify stock cashouts since 2023 by top Spotify executives and board members. Amazingly, total cashouts are now approaching $1.8 billion since SPOT listed on the NYSE in 2018, with most of the action happening in the past two years.

Report Table of Contents

I. The Cash–Out Bonanza: A Look at the $1.8 Billion SPOT Stock-Selling Frenzy

II. Why Now? A Look at the Factors Pushing SPOT Into the Stratosphere

III. The Biggest SPOT Stock Sale Beneficiaries, Ranked

IV. A Turbulent 2025: Can the Hockey Stick Possibly Continue for SPOT?

Photo Credit: Global Gaming League

The Global Gaming League has raised $10 million in funding from celebrity investors including T-Pain and Flavor Flav. The league is not focused on eSports, but rather a league that brings together every kind of player.

GGL was founded by Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum music producer and entrepreneur Clinton Sparks, in partnership with T-Pain and tech entrepreneur Jeff Hoffman (Priceline, UBid, Booking.com). The GGL is a multi-title gaming league with celebrity-owned teams made up of four players each. Members of the teams are influencers, actors, athletes, artists, casual, and professional gamers.

They compete in live events playing everything from first person shooters, sports titles, and fighting games to the latest releases and retro favorites. Speaking in an interview with GamesBeat, Founder Clinton Sparks said he wanted to create a model similar to owning a sports franchise without the headache. “The celebrities don’t have to worry about managing, staffing, recruiting, sales, merchandising, any of that stuff,” Sparks says.

GGL owns each team with each celebrity at a 50/50 split. “We’re their partners and we’re their entire back office, the GGL,” Sparks continues. Solyco Capital led the SAFE round, while the rest are strategic individal investors. The first team owners to be revealed include T-Pain, Bryce Hall (TikTok star), and Flavor Flav. GGL will be announcing more team owners in the coming weeks, pulling from music, film, sports, fashion, social media, and gaming.

Gaming revenue is projected to surpass $300 billion by 2026—eclipsing TV, film, and music combined. Unlike other media where viewers and listeners can be distracted or multi-tasking, gaming usually requires full focus. For brands, leagues like this are a new way to reach a tuned in consumer. With 74% of Gen Z expressing interest in careers in gaming or digital medial, GGL is creating the infrastructure to meet the demand.

“The GGL is positioned to make gaming a household name in the same manner that WWE did with wrestling and the UFC did with mixed martial arts,” Sparks adds. “By systemizing and democratizing an industry that already exists with billions of users and hundreds of billions already being generated.”

Clinton Sparks started out as a DJ and record producer in Boston. He created bootleg remixes and mixtapes and hosted the radio show SmashTimeRadio. In 2012, he was nominated for a Grammy for his production work on Lady Gaga’s Born This Way album. He’s also written and produced songs for Akon, Ludacris, 2 Chains, Big Sean, and more.

Mock deal terms in beatBread’s Deal Comparison Tool, with an ‘Expected Case’ for content performance during the deal term (photo: beatBread)

For those artists and indie labels lucky enough to have multiple funding offers, beatBread now offers a potentially game-changing tool for weighing competing options. Surprisingly, beatBread’s initial results show that most artists and indie labels (60%) would likely sign a sub-optimal deal before thoroughly vetting their options.

Once upon a time, music financing was a dark art driven by elusive A&R instinct. These days, thankfully, there’s a lot more data behind funding decisions, and labels (and their distributors) aren’t the only game in town. And while indie labels and artists now have more choices, sorting through what is a good and bad deal is difficult, as terms are complex, hard to understand, and fraught with traps and pitfalls. But 2025 might be the year that artists and indie labels gain a serious upper hand.

Last month, we profiled beatBread’s recently released Deal Comparison Tool, a handy platform for weighing a stack of competing music financing offers. In a nutshell, the Tool allows an artist or indie label to view a number of offers side-by-side and weigh those offers according to a variety of parameters. Just recently, DMN partnered with beatBread to further amplify this newly released platform.

Artists and labels can simultaneously compare up to five offers, analyzing upfront cash, fees, recoupment time, and long-term costs. Even better, it allows artists, indie labels, and IP owners to ‘normalize’ offer metrics, which comes in handy if deals are being extended from labels, distributors, publishers, or investors.

Of course, any artist or label can manually compare offers before deciding. The problem is that there are so many variables to weigh, and headline terms don’t tell you how costs and recoupment will likely play out over time.

‘Headline’ deal terms can mask a deal’s actual costs. And understanding outcomes based on catalog and new release performance is extremely difficult.

“Even the most sophisticated executives are sometimes deceived by ‘headline terms’ in a deal,” beatBread CEO Peter Sinclair relayed. “The Deal Comparison Tool gives artists and labels the chance to cut through the fog and get a true understanding of a deal because it links the key terms of a contract to a real range of probable outcomes as music is released and continues to perform.”

Sinclair is hugely confident about the comparison platform’s power. To put it bluntly, he’s not sure there’s a better tool out there for weighing different offers—online or off—which is exactly the confidence you need to release something of this magnitude. Just a few weeks after its launch, the Tool is being used by a significant number of artists and labels to weigh their funding options.

The strange part is that a majority of those using the Tool have chosen not to work with beatBread.

“If beatBread is only funding four, three, or even two out of ten deals we’re helping to vet, then we’re winning,” Sinclair explained. “Artists or indie labels might choose a beatBread partner or select a deal on a party entirely unaffiliated with beatBread.”

But, according to Sinclair, they know they’re signing the best offer.

“I’d rather beatBread develop a reputation as a straight shooter than try and convince an extra three or four people out of ten to take our deal when it’s not the best deal,” he continued.

Sinclair clarified, however, that this isn’t a self-service tool.

Instead, beatBread has experts to help artists and indie labels visualize the trade-offs between deal structures, including revenue splits, term lengths, and long-run costs. Once everything is laid out, determining the “best deal” depends on various factors and preferences, including the artist or indie labels’ expectation of catalog performance, risk appetite, and need for upfront cash vs. long-term cash flow.

Among the early adopters is Dan Englander, founder of indie label KingUnderground.

“When I came to beatBread, I had what I thought were two quite attractive distribution offers,” Englander said. “After seeing the output of beatBread’s Deal Comparison Tool, I realized there were several scenarios where I could have ended up strapped for cash.”

Englander didn’t end up selecting beatBread’s deal, though he did sign with a beatBread partner, which means beatBread co-invested in the deal alongside its partner.

Sinclair noted that Englander’s situation is not unique. The landscape for music financing presents a number of choices to artists and indie labels, but those choices often have many pitfalls and traps.

“It has become standard industry practice to offer headline terms (nominal term length, total deal value) that simply do not reflect how a deal is likely to play out in the real world,” Sinclair added.

“In the worst cases, beatBread’s beta test showed that some independent labels would most likely end up forced into a distress sale after a few years had they taken the seemingly best distribution or label JV offer in front of them.”

“It’s no secret that indie artists and labels have more options than ever,” Sinclair said. “BeatBread’s mission is to help them make the right decision, even if they choose a funding partner other than beatBread.”

VInyl record (LP+EP) shipments in the United States, 2020-2024 (Data Source: RIAA)

Vinyl records are the comeback story that nobody saw coming. But are we also missing a pending plateau?

Streaming is the music industry’s cash cow, so it makes sense that subscriber levels are being closely watched. But what about vinyl records? In this report, we take a look at some scarily flat LP sales figures emerging in 2024, and assess whether a vinyl plateau might be afoot.

Report Table of Contents

I. Tackling the Core Question: Are Vinyl Record Sales Entering a Plateau?

II. The American Sales Picture

A. US-Based LP Sales Inch Upward 1% In 2024 – Though Per-Unit Revenues Remain Solid

B. The Factors at Play: Superfans, Methodologies, and Year-Over-Year Variations

C. Mixed-Up Data: Luminate’s Vinyl Counting ‘Correction’ In 2024

III. The European LP Sales Picture: Emerging Sales Stats In the UK, Spain, Italy

IV. The Broader Look: US-Based Vinyl Sales, 2015-2024

V. A Look at the Future of a Niche Format: Will Vinyl Ever Cross the Chasm Into Something More Substantial?

Please note: this report is for DMN Pro subscribers only. Please do not redistribute — thank you!

Music industry funding achieved a substantial year-over-year increase in March 2025. But the month and its 2024 counterpart still recorded fewer combined raises than March 2023. Photo Credit: Giorgio Trovato

Thanks in part to massive raises from catalog investors, core music industry funding turned in a significant YoY jump during March 2025. From a volume perspective, the month (as well as March 2024) lagged behind its 2023 counterpart — signifying a shift away from frothiness.

These and other worthwhile takeaways come from data compiled in DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker. The one-stop resource features detailed breakdowns of raises from in-and-around the music world.

On the “around” front, the Funding Tracker distinguishes between core and industry-adjacent raises, both of which are explored below. Any rounds disclosed in foreign currencies are converted into USD at the time of announcement, and those values were left in place for this piece’s calculations.

Core Music Industry Funding Cracked $1.5 Billion in March 2025

All told, music industry funding hiked to $5.08 billion during March 2025, up substantially from March 2024’s $63.52 million, DMN Pro data shows. But as usual, the funding story doesn’t begin and end with the top-level valuation boost.

Most importantly, the lion’s share of the March 2025 sum derived from Anthropic’s $3.5 billion Series E. Less that gargantuan raise and a few others adjacent to the industry proper, the month’s core music funding came in at $1.52 billion.

Even that figure marks a material increase from March 2024, especially given that the prior-year month’s core funding finished at $10.36 million.

The Catalog-Acquisition Boom Isn’t Over Yet – IP Investors Scored Sizable Fundraises in March 2025

Furthermore, March 2024 didn’t have the benefit of a multibillion-dollar total contribution from the catalog side. However, Pophouse Entertainment confirmed a roughly $1.3 billion catalog fundraise (the majority of which remains undeployed) last month, while Duetti secured $200 million in fresh debt funding.

Minus the combined $1.5 billion in question, core music industry funding totaled $20 million in March 2025 and had an average round size of $6.67 million. The former sum increased about 93% from March 2024’s above-mentioned $10.36 million in core funding. And March 2025’s average round size rose noticeably from the older month’s $3.45 million.

More to the Picture Than Hard Funding: Raise Volume Was Still Down in March 2024 and 2025

With all that said, when it comes to the overall music industry funding landscape, there’s more to consider than March 2025’s YoY value spike. Combined, March 2024 and 2025 delivered 13 industry and industry-adjacent rounds, two of which came from social music app Hook. That’s less than the total behind March 2023 alone.

It’s impossible to say exactly when the IP-acquisition sector will experience a funding-announcement cool-down. Of course, billions are already earmarked for catalog purchases, plenty of players scoop up song rights without publicly revealing their raises, and there are only so many bodies of work to buy.

But when things do taper off, the situation will have a major effect on (among different areas) funding, which is still down big in 2025 as a whole. Meanwhile, though valuable, hard data doesn’t cover every funding angle; several music industry startups have ceased operating after scoring multimillion-dollar raises in recent years.

We’ll be peeling this onion a lot more over the coming weeks — with full quarter and broader year-over-year analyses ahead. Stay tuned.

Hybe IM president Wooyong Chung, whose company has announced a new raise. Photo Credit: Hybe

Hybe’s gaming division has scored another $20.5 million in funding and touched on plans to leverage its parent’s K-pop IP moving forward.

That division, Hybe IM, disclosed the ₩30 billion tranche in a brief announcement today. According to the company, existing backer IMM Investment kicked in half the sum, which also reflects support from new investors Shinhan Venture Investment and Daesung Private Equity.

All told, Hybe IM has now raised ₩137.5 billion (currently $93.5 million) to date. And at least as described by the developer and publisher, forthcoming titles like Architect: Land of Exiles (the seemingly massive MMORPG received a trailer in November) as well as the long-in-development Arkheron are driving the continued investor interest.

But as mentioned, the BTS Island: In the SEOM Puzzle creator further intends “to expand its game business using HYBE’s K-pop artist IPs.”

Time will tell exactly what these plans entail, though BTS’ quick-approaching reunion is worth keeping in mind here. So is the overarching Hybe’s ongoing effort to diversify beyond K-pop and to capitalize on demand from diehard supporters.

On the latter front, the Weverse superfan app is still rolling out fresh features (the latest being a listening-party option). Additionally, mid-2024 saw Hybe’s Binary Korea launch a different fan-engagement platform yet, Theus.

(As an aside, Bang Jun-hyuk, the cousin of Hybe chairman Bang Si-hyuk, is the founder of South Korean mobile-gaming giant Netmarble.)

Stated differently, Hybe has a strong superfan foundation and a rather reliable means of gauging which games are likely to resonate with signed acts’ most committed followers.

In a statement, Hybe IM president Wooyong Chung drove home his business’s wider goal of emerging as “a next-generation publisher.”

“This additional funding marks a pivotal moment in strengthening HYBE IM’s global competitiveness in both game publishing and development,” the former Nexon exec communicated. “We aim to evolve beyond IP-based gaming and become a next-generation publisher delivering compelling content to gamers worldwide.”

Closer to the present, three-year-old Hybe IM indicated that it would “primarily” put the newly obtained capital towards “marketing, operations, and localization strategies.”

Bigger picture, Hybe isn’t the only K-pop mainstay working to leverage existing IP via standalone apps and games. SM Entertainment owner Kakao (and specifically Kakao Entertainment) wrapped March by bringing its Berriz fan platform to a global audience.

Available in 18 languages, Berriz features content from a variety of professionals and media (like the television program Crushology 101, to name one) – not solely K-pop talent.

OpenAI has announced a $40 billion funding round, but according to a report, it must convert to a for-profit company by 2025’s end in order to secure the full amount. Photo Credit: Levart_Photographer

Another day, another massive AI funding round — this time from OpenAI, which has announced a staggering $40 billion raise at a $300 billion post-cash valuation.

The ChatGPT developer disclosed its newest round, reportedly the largest raise secured by any startup to date, in a brief message. Spanning less than 100 words and lacking quotes from higher-ups, said message doesn’t contain an abundance of supplemental information.

But OpenAI did touch on broad goals of using the capital “to push the frontiers of AI research even further” and to “deliver increasingly powerful tools” to users. Additionally, the AI giant underscored its excitement “to be working in partnership with SoftBank Group.”

Beyond this concise breakdown, outlets including the Wall Street Journal have indicated that there are strings attached to SoftBank’s support. (All told, the latter could amount to $30 billion; different parties are expected to kick in $10 billion.)

Most significantly, the Tokyo-headquartered company can “pare back” the raise to $20 billion if OpenAI fails to restructure into a for-profit company by 2025’s end, per the Journal.

As for SoftBank’s debt-bankrolled contribution, the Stargate stakeholder is expected to forward $10 billion worth of borrowed capital to OpenAI in April; assuming OpenAI realizes its privatization goal, the remaining $30 billion is tentatively set to arrive before early 2026.

To reiterate the obvious, despite already boasting impressive tools, generative AI is still in its relative infancy.

And only time will tell whether the current market leaders maintain their positioning in the long term. Unprecedented nature aside, AI is also facing pressing questions about ever-elusive profitability.

Nevertheless, between OpenAI’s just-revealed raise and xAI’s X combination alone, it probably goes without saying that there’s no shortage of capital flying around the space.

That’s definitely important for rightsholders in (and well beyond) the music world, which are still litigating against leading AI players for allegedly training their models on protected works without permission.

OpenAI in particular has been accused of multiple copyright-law violations; GEMA is spearheading a related lawsuit in Germany. In the bigger picture, besides these key complaints, high-stakes discussions are ongoing in the States and the U.K. about AI training laws themselves.

Then there are the training practices of AI companies based in countries with less robust IP protections.

Far from hesitant to ingest data (including from rival companies) en masse, those operations are unlikely to cough up material rightsholder compensation. Perhaps more urgently, their outputs and capabilities look to be improving rapidly.

Pophouse Entertainment co-founder Björn Ulvaeus. Photo Credit: UMG

After raising €1.2 billion (currently $1.3 billion), Pophouse Entertainment has closed its inaugural fund, which it says is “approximately 30% deployed.”

Stockholm-based Pophouse announced the closure this morning, describing $1.1 billion/€1 billion as the core fund’s “hard cap.” Meanwhile, the remaining $216 million/€200 million in “secured capital” is attributable to “dedicated co-investment vehicles.”

Behind the sizable overall sum, the Björn Ulvaeus-founded company says it’s secured investments from pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, “high-net-worth individuals,” and others yet.

And as mentioned, although it’s been three years since Pophouse made a catalog-acquisition splash by buying Swedish House Mafia’s IP, the majority of the fund is undeployed.

Especially since 2024 saw Pophouse pick up the dealmaking pace – referring to agreements with both Cyndi Lauper (February) and KISS (April) – it’ll be worth keeping an eye out for additional plays during 2025.

While Pophouse opted against disclosing its precise IP purchasing plans today, it did underscore a continued emphasis on an “artist-centric approach to investing.” In short, that approach revolves around taking stakes in publishing, recording, and NIL rights alike.

“By investing across publishing, recording, and brand rights,” Pophouse managing partner Johan Lagerlöf added on this front, “Pophouse has created a uniquely attractive prospect not only for investors but also for artists, empowering them to explore and amplify their legacy to new generations of fans.”

“Facing unprecedented disruption caused by streaming and technology, music intellectual property presents a differentiated, lifetime opportunity for investors,” said Pophouse co-founder Conni Jonsson. “We are reshaping the entertainment industry by applying an active, value-add approach that unlocks future generations for fandom.”

As things stand, the all-encompassing strategy isn’t exactly prevalent in the music-IP arena, where rapid-fire deals, large and small, remain the norm.

But Iconoclast’s Tony Bennett catalog investment extends to NIL, and Primary Wave earlier in March bought a diverse collection of Notorious B.I.G. rights, to name a couple examples.

Furthermore, Pophouse, having hit a financial homerun with its ABBA Voyage hologram concert, is leveraging its IP holdings in the digital-avatar space as well. (According to its ticketing-availability breakdown for April, ABBA Voyage is still attracting a number of attendees.)

A hologram version of KISS is forthcoming, and last summer, reports indicated that Pophouse was in talks to develop an Elvis avatar concert.

This possible Elvis hologram would follow a separate Elvis Evolution “walkthrough immersive experience,” which is seemingly riding a wave of fan interest. Developed by Layered Reality and showing (like ABBA Voyage) in London, Elvis Evolution has already sold out for May, June, and July 2025, per its website.

Photo Credit: Mihail-Anton Ghiga

GetReal Security, a cybersecurity firm specializing in the mitigation of malicious generative AI threats—including deepfakes and impersonation attacks—has raised $17.5 million in Series A funding.

The funding round was led by AI investment firm Forgepoint Capital, with participation from Ballistic Ventures, Evolution Equity, and K2 Access Fund. Strategic investors include In-Q-Tel, Cisco Investments, and Capital One ventures.

The company offers a complete set of solutions designed to help organizations effectively manage risk and mitigate threats from new AI-fueled attacks. All products and services are offered through GetReal’s unified platform, which provides the infrastructure to accommodate all modalities (image, audio, video) for both files and real-time digital communication streams.

Joining GetReal Security’s board of directors are Forgepoint Capital Co-Founder and Managing Director Alberto Yépez and GetReal Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer Dr. Hany Farid—a preeminent digital forensics expert in the field. The new capital will fuel GetReal’s research and development, product development, and go-to-market operations as the company addresses the rapidly evolving threat environment associated with generative AI and digital content.

“Developments in foundation models and generative AI have evolved the attack surface well beyond traditional networks and infrastructures, opening up new vulnerabilities in protecting the modern digital enterprise. This means the verification and authentication of digital content—whether text, images, audio, or video—is a critical new frontier of enterprise risk management as organizations have become prime targets for manipulation and exploitation,” shares Yépez.

“What sets the GetReal team apart is their combination of world-class digital forensics and deep cyber domain expertise. The team is uniquely positioned to address this challenge and equip enterprises to defend against this new attack vector.”

“We’ve reached a pivotal moment. AI-generated content is on the verge of dominating the digital landscape and bad actors are already exploiting these advancements,” adds Ted Schlein, Chairman & Co-Founder of GetReal. “The need for solutions that can quickly and accurately verify and authenticate digital media has never been more critical. We’re happy to welcome these new investors to our syndicate, and we look forward to working together to protect enterprises and governments from the growing threats posed by AI-driven deception.”

Photo Credit: Hook

Social music platform Hook secures $3 million in additional funding from investors like Khosla Ventures, Kygo’s Palm Tree Crew, and many more.

A platform enabling users to easily (and legally) remix songs by some of the top musicians, Hook has announced the closing of $3 million in additional funding, bringing its total to $6 million. The round includes new investments from Kygo’s Palm Tree Crew, The Raine Group, and Khosla Ventures, as well as continued support from existing investors. These include Imaginary Ventures, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Ventures, KSHMR, and Waverley Capital, co-founded by former Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr.

Hook addresses the biggest hurdle in the music industry today: the rise of unlicensed content across social media platforms. In fact, 40% of music consumed on social media comes from remixes and mashups, which are often created without proper licensing. Hook provides a legitimate solution for creators while ensuring that rights holders maintain control and monetization of their content.

“We have built music’s new ecosystem, where creativity and rights can finally coexist. For too long, the industry has been stuck choosing between protecting artists’ rights and enabling creative expression. Hook creates a future where fans and creators can freely express themselves, artists and labels can properly monetize their work, and the entire music community thrives together,” says Gaurav Sharma, Founder and CEO of Hook. “This isn’t just about fixing a broken system — it’s about building the foundation for music’s next chapter.”

The new funding will accelerate Hook’s marketing efforts and strategic hiring, with a focus on user acquisition. The platform is the first specialized AI-powered tool for creating and distributing licensed remixed music content in short-form formats, filling the gap that existing editing tools haven’t addressed for the music industry.

“We are incredibly excited to invest in Hook and support its mission to innovate how artists and creators engage with their work and interact with their fans. We look forward to working with and supporting Gaurav and his team on this journey,” said Michael Diaz, CEO of Palm Tree Crew.

Not just a music creation tool, Hook is an “expression platform” that enables creators to product legitimate, monetizable content while ensuring proper compensation for rights holders. This approach creates a sustainable model for the future of music creation and distribution in the social media era.

In just four months, the company has partnered with 16 music partners and features music from over 1,200 artists. These include Justin Bieber, Teddy Swims, James Blake, BLOND:ISH, Playboi Carti, Ty Dolla $ign, KSHMR, Hardwell, Swae Lee, Big Sean, Migos, Soulja Boy, Sadie Jean, Jaden Smith, Killer Mike, and Cash Cobain.

Hook is transforming music creation through its innovative AI and machine learning technologies that power creative remix tools, including genre and mood-changing filters and mashups. Hook’s commitment to ethical AI practices includes never training algorithms on artists’ music, an approach that has earned it industry recognition with Universal Music Group including Hook in its MusicForAI initiative as an approved, ethically sound AI platform.

Since the app’s launch in October, Hook has continued to expand its features for music fans with better discovery and recommendations, and improved music remixing and video editing tools. To support the music creator economy Hook is pioneering short-form music monetization through its new creator monetization program. Music creators can now earn money based on engagement, referrals, and bonuses. Artists can now promote their catalog through on and off-platform promotions and Remix Challenges that allow creators and fans to interact with music in creative ways and win prizes.

Photo Credit: RDNE

Concord Music’s rumored acquisition of Stem Disintermedia is fetching a bigger price tag than previously thought, according to DMN sources.

For those who love that music industry deal flow, here’s ‘another one’: according to well-placed sources to DMN, Concord Music is plunking down more than $100 million for indie music distributor and artist financier Stem Disintermedia. That is more than double earlier whisper numbers — and apparently this is a ‘done deal’ with final details being tied up.

In terms of bringing this home, big props are being given to Stem’s ultra-shrewd co-founder and CEO, Milana Lewis. Lewis didn’t respond to a request for comment on the latest whisper number, and a Concord representative was also mum. Incidentally, DMN has also learned that this deal derby featured multiple interested parties — including Sony Music Entertainment — though it appears that bidding battles were relatively tame.

Earlier, various trade rags offered differing takes on what’s happening. Among the reported details are a sale price of $50 million—or definitely not—with a full-blown sale being transacted (or maybe it’s just an ownership stake). On the last point, DMN sources have explained that this is a finalized transaction, though nothing official has been released, so stay tuned.

But, is $100 million really that great?

Some well-heeled dealmakers, including The Raine Group and the venerable Fred Davis, are pulling the strings on this one. But doing the math, this may be less of an epic dunk than it appears: According to data from DMN Pro’s authoritative Music Industry Funding Tracker, Stem has pulled in roughly $42.5 million in funding since its founding in 2015, with an additional $250 million credit facility secured last year to power an artist-financing expansion, including artist advances.

That suggests a modest investor return for all parties involved despite the 9-figure sticker. Will anyone score lifetime ‘F-U money‘ once this deal is closed? Aside from the company principals and even angels, the list of investors is lengthy and includes Evolution Media, Aspect Ventures, WndrCo, Upfront Ventures, Block, Slow Ventures, and QED Investors, among others.

That raises the question: perhaps this is a good time to get out in a frothier moment for indie distributors?

On that last point, some static has emerged over Stem’s financing terms, with rising interest rates and tighter lending standards impacting artist deals.

Indeed, this has apparently become a growing issue at Stem, given that sought-after artists can shop around for better deals and advances, pushing up the price of scoring high-performing talent relationships. Beyond that, the broader bonanza era of low-interest rates couldn’t be more over, putting enormous pressure on leveraged plays.

(Incidentally, those plunging into the funding deals in DMN Pro should not confuse Stem with the NFT-focused ‘Stems,’ which secured a $4 million round in late 2022.)

Back to the matter at hand, broader questions are now percolating on whether Warner Music Group was merely kicking the tires on Stem — or if they were even seriously at the table.

Just recently, WMG chief Robert Kyncl pooh-poohed the notion of acquiring independent distributors, preferring to build rather than buy. It all sounds logical, though that takeaway seems to contradict rumors that WMG was seriously bidding.

Just days later, WMG also acquired RSDL.io via its independent distro arm, ADA, suggesting that Kyncl might be playing a Steve Jobs-like game of ‘reality distortion’ to calm rival bids.

Separately, it looks like business as usual at Stem despite the hastening acquisition.

Earlier this week, Stem Director of Artist & Label Strategy Kylie Everitt picked apart some indie distribution details at Musexpo at the Castaway in Burbank, part of a broader industry panel moderated by Digital Music News that also included execs from Gyrostream, Audeze, Strm Music, Hook, and Chartmetric.

More as this develops.

Visual gen AI platform Bria has announced a $40 million funding round and plans to expand its rightsholder-attribution model to the music world. Photo Credit: Steve Johnson

Visual gen AI platform Bria, which says it’s “built on 100% licensed data,” has announced a $40 million Series B.

The enterprise-focused AI company disclosed the raise today, after unveiling a $24 million Series A about 13 months back. Tel Aviv-based Red Dot Capital led the newer round, which drew additional support from Luxembourg’s Maor Investments, SeatGeek stakeholder Entrée Capital, Palo Alto’s GFT Ventures, Overwolf backer Intel Capital, and IN Venture.

As things stand, Bria operates chiefly on the image-generation side, including, of course, with several text-to-image models. Also part of the business’s offerings are generative products tailored for brands and developers, a variety of editing tools, and AI-powered marketing options.

More noteworthy than these AI resources is Bria’s approach to training and rightsholder compensation. Through what’s dubbed the “Multi-Modal Attribution Engine,” the startup is said to track the training materials incorporated into each of its outputs, compensating the appropriate “creators” accordingly.

On this front, Bria’s 30 “data partners” and counting include Getty Images and Freepix, to name a couple.

Stated bluntly, that’s a stark contrast to the approach employed by certain gen AI giants – including in the music world, where training-related compensation continues to allude rightsholders in many instances. And it’s especially interesting given Bria’s apparent plans to bring the “patented” attribution model “to music, video, and text generation.”

(Some music-specific gen AIs say they’ve not trained on protected materials at all – though even that assurance doesn’t mean their outputs’ commercial impact is positive for proper artists or the wider industry.)

Time will reveal the buildout’s schedule, adoption specifics, and ability to unlock new rightsholder revenue, but Bria founder and head Yair Adato emphasized his vision for the attribution expansion in particular.

“While our patented attribution technology has instilled trust in AI systems,” Adato said in part, “facilitating responsible, controlled access to coveted IP content will change the game. … By broadening our attribution offering to all types of content, including music, video, and text, we are helping to usher in a truly sustainable creative economy.”

Earlier in March, Sony Music led AI licensing and monetization startup Vermillio’s $16 million Series A, after another rights startup, Musical AI, scored a $1.5 million pre-seed round in February.

Plus, 2024 saw Universal Music strike a deal with ProRata, which says its technology enables gen AI platforms to “accurately attribute and share revenues on a per-use basis with content owners.”

Denver’s Señor Bear, one of hundreds of venues tracked by Audoo’s recent song-tracking pilot.

Theoretically, performing rights organizations (PROs) track and tally every song played in public and streaming platforms – then dole out the royalties accordingly. Now, London-based Audoo has hard evidence showing that billions of song plays can be counted with near-100% accuracy.

While mega-PROs like ASCAP and BMI do a laudable job of tracking, matching, and distributing royalties on billions of tracks played in the United States, a nagging question is whether these vast systems can be improved. This is more than just an academic musing: the answer to this surprisingly complex question has the potential to reshape the public performance sphere for decades to come.

Enter Audoo CEO Ryan Edwards, who is driven by a mission to count every song played worldwide in public places for years — and is marching towards that goal with backers like Bjorn Ulvaeus and Sir Elton John. Theoretically, the tech exists to count everything with total accuracy, though the details are devilish. Accordingly, Edwards and his team have spent millions developing the ‘Audio Meter’ and deployed it into thousands of venues and public places worldwide to capture the music in action.

That effort is now hitting the United States. Just recently, Audoo concluded a far-reaching first entry to the US in Denver involving hundreds of public places – with nearly 100% of songs played in those establishments tracked. That included restaurants, gyms, bars, and retail establishments across the city.

“The feedback from the license holders was very supportive,” Edwards told DMN. “Many of them have wondered for years how their fees are distributed and were very passionate about the way music sets the tone of their businesses.”

The results of the Audoo pilot, shared with Digital Music News and part of an ongoing partnership, began in late June of 2024 and concluded in February of this year.

Among the most refreshing takeaways is that virtually every song can be successfully detected, logged, and tallied with all key metadata information (including ISRC & ISWC) using the installed Audio Meters, which makes sense. Imagine an industrial-scale, private version of Shazam in every venue, and you’ve captured Audoo’s business approach.

“Music has always been consumed in so many different ways, from business owners creating a ‘mixtape’ CD or playlist, playing the radio, and empowering employees to adjust the music based on the tone they need,” Edwards said. “To us, it’s about what’s been played and then reporting that accurately. Just get the music playing, and we’ll work with the PRO/CMO to do the rest.”

But what’s actually getting played? Here’s where things start to get really interesting. The current thinking is that music played in public spaces roughly mirrors popular playlists on media like terrestrial radio and streaming platforms. But Audoo’s data shows a surprisingly slim overlap with massive DSPs (i.e., Digital Service Providers or streaming platforms) and social media platforms.

Here’s just a quick look at the overlap – or complete lack thereof.

The following breakdown was pulled from a sample week in February (2025) using the top 40 songs tracked throughout the city. It was then compared to the top 40 songs played on other platforms for the same period.

What’s the overlap percentage? Take a look.

• • Audoo x Apple Music – 0% crossover
  • Audoo x Billboard – 2.5% crossover
  • Audoo x Shazam – 5% crossover
  • Audoo x Spotify – 5 % crossover
  • Audoo x TikTok – 0% crossover

“The results mirror what we have seen and reports in other markets around the world,” Edwards shared. “The more US cities we launch into, the more diverse [data] we expect to see. This can make a difference in thousands of creators making a living, or sadly, not.”

Also surprising: most of the music played in Denver hails from the United States (more than 50%) and the UK (nearly 15%). Other countries were marginal single-digit contributors, including Australia, France, Germany, and Sweden. Those percentages are likely different in other cities, though Audoo also highlighted some interesting exceptions.

Denver bar and restaurant Señor Bear, for example, plays a blend of Latin-inspired music from Argentina, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Spain. The curated playlist also includes 24% American music sourced from local artists.

That’s a far cry from the top 10 list of most-played artists throughout the city, which includes Tame Impala, Jungle, Hozier, Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen, The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Bad Bunny, Zach Bryan, and Neil Frances. Sounds like tried-and-true stuff, though many of the most–played songs aren’t topping the charts on radio or Spotify.

The data also offers a range of other insights, including detailed breakdowns by venue type (restaurant or gym, for example) and the most frequently played songs. Audoo even tracks the level of commonality between different venue types, while identifying unique establishments (for example, a physical therapy clinic that is also a local music champion).

“Business owners know first hand the value of playing music, and of those we have started working with in the US, the feedback has been very positive,” Edwards shared. “Nobody challenges paying for a music license, despite the complexities of multiple PROs in the US. But knowing the hard-earned money is being paid to the artists they play is key.”

“Our technology is there to help PROs: no more manual surveys, proxy data sets, or outdated analogies. The past cannot be changed, but now is the time for accurate reporting for fair and transparent distributions.”

But what does this have to do with Congressional inquiries into PROs currently happening in Washington?

Just recently, the US Copyright Office launched a significant inquiry into PROs in response to Congressional concerns. Among the many questions being examined is how PROs gather performance information and how this impacts rights owners.

For Edwards, it’s a complex question with a surprisingly simple answer: just count everything!

A tally of core music industry funding, 2025 YTD (Source: DMN Pro/Digital Music News)

Duetti’s recent $200 million in debt funding pushed core music industry funding past the half-a-billion threshold for 2025, per DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker. That’s certainly a big number, though it represents a major drop from comparable YTD fingers in 2024 and 2023. Here’s a breakdown of the numbers — and a look at which companies are scoring rounds.

As the music industry enters the first half of March, year-to-date 2025 funding isn’t too shabby. Over a total of nine core music industry rounds, funding levels have now crossed $645.5 million, per DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker. For those hoping for an outperforming year, however, there are early signs of softness.

Compared to the same period last year, total 2025 funding is nearly 50% lower. Part of that can be attributed to an absolute gangbuster February 2024 period, which was one of the strongest music funding months in recent memory. That contributed to a strong 2024 annual funding total, which slightly edged out 2023 rounds.

Here’s a look at early-2025 tallies, 2024’s early-year rounds, and the broader funding picture over the past few years.

Table of Contents

I. Music Industry Funding Crosses Half-a-Billion In 2025: A Look at the Companies Scoring Cash This Year

II. Year-Over-Year Differences Remain Great – A Comparison to YTD Figures In 2024

III. Bigger Picture: Core Music Industry Funding, 2020-2024

IV. What’s Next? Future Research from DMN Pro

Please note that this report is for DMN Pro subscribers only. Please do not redistribute — thank you.

Anthropic has announced a $3.5 billion Series E and a $61.5 billion post-cash valuation. Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa

About five weeks after scoring another $1 billion investment from Google, Anthropic has raised an additional $3.5 billion.

The AI giant confirmed as much in a brief release, following early January rumblings of a $2 billion round at a staggering $60 billion valuation. As it turns out, the actual Series E is even larger than that – including, in keeping with the extra funding, a $61.5 billion post-cash valuation.

Lightspeed Venture Partners (also a backer of AI music platform Suno and more) led Anthropic’s newest round, which drew additional support from Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, General Catalyst, Jane Street, and several others.

Unsurprisingly, the Claude developer didn’t come right out and disclose its exact plans for the capital. However, Anthropic did acknowledge broader goals of continuing to create “next-generation AI systems” and accelerating its global buildout.

And while it perhaps goes without saying at this point, the efforts (and those of different generative AI players) are decidedly important for the music world.

Specifically when it comes to Anthropic, music publishers are still litigating over alleged infringement, with quite a lot riding on the underlying “fair use” training questions.

Notwithstanding the questions’ significance from a straight copyright perspective and in terms of the best way for rightsholders to approach AI legislation, it’ll be some time before we have concrete answers.

We previously explored the distinct possibility that plodding legal battles will be unable to keep pace with AI. Since this August 2024 report, besides the underlying technology’s continued evolution and a few relatively small concessions, the publishers’ Anthropic case has faced another delay.

Now, at the earliest, the showdown is tentatively scheduled to head to trial in March 2026. (In its latest weekly report, DMN Pro broke down exactly where the music space’s biggest AI cases stand.)

Of course, rights-related AI concerns aren’t limited to the States, nor is the ongoing industry response confined to the courtroom.

On the former front, there’s far-reaching pushback across the pond over a proposed “opt-out” system for AI training. (And despite the considerable length of the EU’s AI Act, the massive law is allowing for opt-out training loopholes of its own, according to reform-minded critics.)

Meanwhile, Sony Music yesterday led a $16 million Series A for Vermillio, a licensing platform designed to help rightsholders detect – and monetize – their works’ use in generative AI.

Duetti has announced $200 million in new funding. Photo Credit: Duetti

A little over four months after scoring $114 million from a combination of equity financing and an ABS, Duetti has announced $200 million in fresh funding.

The indie-focused catalog investor reached out today with word of that sizable tranche, the result of two new credit facilities. One month and change after leading Influence Media Partners’ inaugural royalties securitization, Truist Securities led the first of those Duetti facilities ($150 million).

And Viola Credit, for its part, kicked in the remaining $50 million via a “side facility.” All told, that means Duetti has raised north of $435 million since its 2022 launch – with last year alone having delivered more than $200 million.

(Duetti announced the initially mentioned $114 million in October 2024, after disclosing a separate $90 million raise in February.)

Of course, it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise that the self-described catalog-monetization company intends to keep on purchasing IP. To date, Duetti says it’s “provided over 700 artists up to $7 million per transaction.”

(The $7 million transaction is presumably quite new; when a Duetti rep reached out in late February, her email signature’s company summary pointed to a high-end figure of $3 million.)

However, the New York City-headquartered business is set to begin investing in a variety of song rights, not solely masters, higher-ups indicated.

“Royalty and publishing catalog deals” are officially on the table as well, Duetti spelled out when revealing the just-obtained capital.

Also according to the company, “independent creators who earn at least $2,000 annually from their music rights” can now explore partial or full catalog sales of their own.

“As the only financial and catalog services platform navigating the complexities of multiple types of rights,” CEO Lior Tibon added, “Duetti is continuing to put independent music creators first – many of whom have historically been locked out of traditional catalog deals.

“With the introduction of royalty and publishing deals, we are now able to help even more creators maximize their potential. Our mission remains simple: offer fast, transparent cash deals and help independent musicians grow their careers,” concluded the former Tidal exec.

Meanwhile, Duetti took the opportunity to tout the “growth and custom marketing” perks – extending to playlists, sync, and more – that it’s said to offer via catalog deals.

“Duetti’s support was a total game-changer,” singer-songwriter Anuhea weighed in here. “Not only did they help fund the creation of new music, but their marketing team also helped Come Over Love go viral on TikTok—Giving fresh life to one of my classics from 14 years ago!!”

In other indie-funding news, beatBread last month launched a “Deal Comparison Tool” that, as its name suggests, enables artists and independent labels to see how proposed funding terms stack up.

And though it probably doesn’t need saying in light of Duetti’s announcement, ample capital is still pouring into song rights – with DMN Pro compiling the long list of deals in its one-stop Music IP Acquisition Tracker.

Vermillio co-founder and CEO Dan Neely. Photo Credit: Vermillio

AI licensing and monetization platform Vermillio has scored a $16 million Series A led by Sony Music Entertainment (SME).

The self-described “leader in Authenticated AI solutions” reached out today with word of the multimillion-dollar raise. According to its website, Vermillio has developed products including TraceID, a digital hub designed to help rightsholders identify, license, and, when necessary, flag generative AI content incorporating their protected works.

Of course, against the backdrop of explosive AI growth and adjacent IP concerns, those capabilities are especially valuable in the music world. Furthermore, five-year-old Vermillio and Sony Music have been partnered since at least 2023, when they collaborated on David Gilmour’s AI-powered Metallic Spheres In Colour project.

Now, the major label is officially a stakeholder in the Chicago-headquartered business, which drew Series A funding from DNS Capital to boot. (Also based in Chicago, the latter family office previously backed children’s audio platform Yoto as well as multiple non-music AI startups.)

As for its plans regarding the newly obtained $16 million tranche, Vermillio only reiterated a broader goal of continuing “to protect leading talent, record labels, and studios” in the quick-evolving AI sector.

On that front, the WME-partnered company took the opportunity to emphasize not just the above-highlighted functions, but its ability to power AI promotional initiatives. The aforementioned TraceID, Vermillio summed up, tracked 1.5 million fan creations as part of a custom Spider-Man AI-animation tie-up with Sony Pictures.

(Additionally, children’s entertainment business Pocket.watch and Vermillio last year launched a Ryan’s World campaign enabling fans to capture photos and then purchase custom merch featuring their likenesses in the appropriate art style.)

Running with the point, SME president of global digital business Dennis Kooker spelled out that his company is taking steps to protect IP and “create new commercial possibilities” in the AI world.

“Dan Neely [Vermillio’s co-founder and CEO] and the team at Vermillio share our vision that prioritizing proper consent, clear attribution and appropriate compensation for professional creators is foundational to unlocking monetization opportunities in this space,” proceeded Kooker.

“We look forward to expanding our successful collaboration with them as we work to support the growth of trusted platforms by enabling secure AI solutions that are mutually beneficial for technology innovators, artists and rightsholders,” concluded the longtime Sony Music exec.

This past August, Universal Music Group inked a partnership agreement with content-attribution company ProRata.ai. Having scored a reportedly $25 million Series A at about the same time, ProRata recently rolled out an AI search engine, Gist, in beta ahead of a full-scale release later in 2025.

SoloAI has announced a $2 million seed round. Photo Credit: Steve Johnson

AI-powered music generator and virtual artist creator SoloAI has announced a $2 million seed round.

SoloAI just recently disclosed the multimillion-dollar raise, which was led by HongShan (or HSG, formerly Sequoia China) and drew support from the likes of Story Protocol.

Per its website, the latter counts Endeavor as well as a16z Crypto as investors and “is the World’s IP Blockchain that transforms intelligence into Programmable IP assets.” Evidently, the function fits into SoloAI’s offering, which centers on the mentioned music generation but encompasses a few additional elements.

Beginning with this core creation capability, the startup bills itself as “a pioneering platform designed to democratize music creation” and says it enables users “to effortlessly compose, share, and monetize unique tracks using AI.”

While the capability isn’t exactly unique – the long list of AI music players now includes Suno, Udio, Melodio, and Boomy, to name only a few – SoloAI also appears to function as a streaming service and something of a social hub.

“Our platform isn’t just a tool—it’s a thriving community,” SoloAI penned in an August 2024 introductory thread on X. “Participate in talent show-style contests, get support, and showcase your talents.”

Perhaps more disconcerting than the push “to democratize music creation,” the business pumps out “AI-powered VTuber agents that utilize music as their core medium.” The virtual artists “can compose, perform, and interact with audiences in real time,” according to SoloAI.

One of those VTuber agents, DJ SONA, is live on SoloAI as well as Twitch. Though the digital DJ appears to have quite a long way to go before matching the skill and energy of human creators, it (she?) is already broadcasting 24 hours per day.

Apparently, DJ SONA has an X account, where, when asked about the relationship between SoloAI and Story Protocol, it clarified that “story’s on the decks, solo’s mixing the drinks, and sona’s setting the vibe.”

Lastly, in terms of what may help SoloAI stand out from the AI music crowd, the entity is said to be spearheading tie-ups involving “leading blockchain projects” – with its generated music becoming “a viral and tradeable digital asset on-chain.”

SoloAI prompts users to connect a crypto wallet when joining, and according to the company, these users will “soon” have the option of creating their own avatars.

Earlier in February, YouTube expanded its generative AI capabilities in Shorts, and AI-focused song-rights startup Musical AI scored $1.5 million in funding ahead of a planned seed raise later in 2025.

Music industry funding grew year over year in January 2025, but fell short of January 2023’s total. Photo Credit: Giorgio Trovato

Thanks in large part to another sizable contribution from the catalog sub-sector, music industry funding rose considerably during January 2025.

That valuable finding and other important takeaways are made possible by DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker. The one-stop resource compiles raises (including those, like the $25 million Series B secured by retail audio company Qsic last month, that fly under the media radar) from in and around the industry.

Previously, the all-encompassing database pointed to nearly $5 billion in core 2024 music industry funding – with a substantial portion of the tranche attributable to catalog-focused businesses.

Catalog Factored Heavily Into January 2025 Music Industry Funding

The trend didn’t let up during January 2025, when core music industry funding (excluding another $1 billion round for Anthropic and, though a bit closer to the industry proper, Triller’s $50 million equity raise) came in at $425.91 million.

This sum is about eight times larger than its 2024 counterpart ($51.96 million) and represents an average of $106.48 million per round. But almost 85% of the January 2025 funding total derived from Influence Media Partners’ $360 million ABS, which was by far the month’s biggest core raise.

Even when omitting the ABS – which, like every huge securitization, probably won’t receive a follow up for some time – January 2025 delivered 26.8% more core funding ($65.91 million) than January 2024.

Despite the YoY Boost, January 2025 Music Industry Funding Was Beneath the January 2023 Sum

Notwithstanding January 2025’s YoY funding growth, however, the month failed to top January 2023’s cumulative $1.09 billion in raises. While sizable, the older figure would have been greater yet if Premier Music Group had attached a dollar amount to its publicly disclosed round.

In any event, January 2023 funding resulted from five rounds, the biggest being Kakao Entertainment’s nearly $1 billion private equity raise, followed by a $100 million share subscription facility for Events.com.

Is Funding History Bound to Repeat Itself? Similarities Emerge Across January 2023, 2024, and 2025

Besides ensuring that startups don’t fall through the media cracks (keeping tabs on each industry company would otherwise be a tall task) and enabling the illustration of useful YoY trends, the Tracker allows for bigger-picture takeaways.

For instance, January 2023, 2024, and 2025 alike brought between five and six industry and industry-adjacent rounds apiece.

In each of those three Januarys, one industry round was worth less than $1 million. And contrasting the many massive non-equity or -ABS raises ushered in between 2020 and 2022, all January 2023-25 seed, Series A, and Series B rounds were valued at no more than $40 million apiece, with an average of roughly $11.2 million.

Photo Credit: Musical AI

GenAI music rights startup Musical AI has raised $1.5 million ahead of its seed funding round planned for later this year.

Musical AI is one of the genAI music rights startups vying to be the go-to marketplace for AI companies to strike licensing deals with rights holders.

The company has raised $2.1 million CAD (around $1.5 million) of funding ahead of a separate seed funding round planned for the first half of the year. This round was led by Canadian venture capital firm Build Ventures, alongside unnamed angel investors. Rights holders like Symphonic Distribution and Kanjian, and AI companies like Beatoven, are also on board.

Musical AI is not just serving as a licensing broker, but features tech to analyze the outputs of its AI clients — music generated by its AI models — to accurately divide revenues between the original music inputs used.

“As the opportunity for revenue and need for licensed content become clearer every day, we’re seeing more rights holders and AI companies recognize the need for our platform,” says Musical AI COO and former Beatport head Matt Adell. “Generative AI will need attribution, and we’re the first to master it and provide a secure platform that implements it along with industry-accepted revenue sharing.”

“If we want AI training to be sustainable and ethical, we need attribution. Musical AI is the only company offering it in the audio space,” adds Musical AI CEO Sean Power. “I’m thrilled that discerning investors are backing our efforts to transform how AI is trained.”

According to Musical AI, the platform works by determining what inputs have led to a particular generative AI output, from which it can parse what percentage of an output came from which data source. Rights holders can monitor, take down, and sunset usage of the works they own, while generative AI companies can access licensed data and use Musical AI’s reports to monitor usage for each output generated.

As TikTok’s U.S. future hangs in the balance, Triller has announced $50 million in equity funding. Separately, the company is facing at least two new lawsuits. Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa

As TikTok’s U.S. fate hangs in the balance, the revamped Triller has scored a $50 million equity raise and announced another board appointment. Meanwhile, the company is also facing new lawsuits, one submitted by its former board chair.

Triller Group (NASDAQ: ILLR) disclosed its sizable round (and underscored its perceived status “as a fierce competitor” in the short-form world) in a formal release. By now, TikTok’s precarious stateside future, hinging on a sale, is far from a secret.

Less widely known, however, are the moves that the ByteDance-owned app’s Triller rival has been making as of late. After listing on the public market via a SPAC merger, the company in October 2024 announced a new CEO and made multiple board appointments as part of an ongoing “transformation journey.”

(For reasons that don’t appear to have been publicly disclosed, would-be Triller CEO, former Vevo president Kevin McGurn, ultimately failed to join the company. Wing-Fai Ng, who’s CEO of the entity with which Triller merged to arrive on NASDAQ, is currently leading Triller Group.)

The following month, Triller brought on former TikTok exec Sean Kim to head its namesake app – and kicked off 2025 by offering video backup for TikTokers.

In other words, the platform is looking to make waves in the video-sharing arena, and the corresponding plans will seemingly ramp up thanks to the initially mentioned equity raise.

That $50 million tranche derived from “a private placement with institutional investors,” according to Triller Group, which is touting the likes of Conor McGregor, The Weeknd, Marshmello, and Lil Wayne as backers.

More specifically, a company called KCP Holdings led the round; in a regulatory filing, Triller elaborated that it’d inked a deal to sell up to 6.36 million common shares to KCP at $2.20 apiece.

KCP’s founder, Roger Kennedy, is also set to join the Triller Group board. And Triller, evidently banking on continued download and usage results, has confirmed plans for “an additional fundraise… later this year.”

Closer to the present, higher-ups intend to use the newly obtained capital to develop “cutting-edge AI-driven tools,” improved livestream support, and an optimized “video editing suite,” the overarching Group relayed. (Pre-merger, Triller purchased Amplify.AI and different artificial intelligence assets, and certain AI features are already live.)

“At Triller,” added Triller Group CEO Wing-Fai Ng, “we’re not just building a platform—we’re leading a movement. Whether TikTok is banned or not has no bearing on our trajectory. With powerhouses like Conor McGregor and other global icons who champion our vision, we’ve created a platform that is designed to outlast TikTok and any other competitor.

“We’re not building our business around the failure of others; this seismic shift in social media is only the beginning of what’s to come,” he concluded.

Despite those remarks, it goes without saying that the short-form-video market leader’s abrupt shutdown would present new opportunities for rivals. Time will tell how the unprecedented situation unfolds and where exactly Triller finds itself in the space.

Worth reiterating in conclusion is the clear-cut importance of music on video-sharing apps, besides Triller’s historical licensing woes. Among the latter are legal battles involving Sony Music and Universal Music.

At present, some licensed music (including uploads from Megan Thee Stallion) is live on Triller. But the app’s clearance headaches aren’t entirely in the rearview. Anthem Entertainment fired off a redaction-heavy copyright complaint (25-00056) against Triller last month, for instance.

Separately, on top of a $35 million+ promissory note dispute, Triller saw board director Robert Diamond resign in mid-December. On January 7th, the Atlas Merchant Capital co-founder Diamond sued Triller (25-00129) for allegedly failing to pay him north of $5 million in purportedly due compensation as well as millions’ worth of company stock.

“Increasingly concerned regarding the trajectory of Triller and unable to access information necessary to the carrying out of his duties as a director,” the complaint reads in part, “Mr. Diamond was left with no choice but to resign from the Board of Directors, submitting his resignation letter on December 12, 2024.”

Madrid, where AI concert analytics startup Breakevent is based. Photo Credit: Quique Olivar

Breakevent, a startup developing AI-powered concert analytics software, has scored an over $908,000 (€876,000) funding round.

Madrid-headquartered Breakevent took to social media to disclose the raise. Led by Archipélago Next (which bills itself as “the first VC born in the Canary Islands”), the round also drew support from Estonia’s Startup Wise Guys, Women Angels for STEAM (WA4STEAM), and Miguel Echenique (a partner at Madrid’s AltamarCAM).

Founded in 2020 by Lucía Martínez Prado, who doubles as CEO, Breakevent touts itself specifically as “the ultimate AI tool to make decisions in the music industry.” And according to the company, said tool is designed for promoters, artists, managers, and venues alike.

As described on its website, the startup maintains a database of over 15,000 music events and 1,500 venues in Spain. This core information is leveraged alongside details about genre (including the types of music likeliest to make a commercial splash in a given area), prior events’ ticket sales, and more.

From there, Breakevent then provides “ticket price and capacity suggestions,” “artist recommendations” by location, events’ “success projection,” and more, per the business.

Looking ahead to the remainder of 2025, Prado indicated in more words that Breakevent will continue expanding in Spain while simultaneously taking steps to onboard international clients.

Those buildout efforts will arrive against the backdrop of continued live-sector growth in Europe, where multiple sizable deals wrapped in 2024.

Last year, KKR scooped up European concert giant Superstruct, Germany’s CTS Eventim posted record nine-month revenue after buying See Tickets (on top of different assets) from Vivendi, and reports suggested that London-based ticketing platform DICE was exploring a high-value sale.

Meanwhile, 2025’s first month has seen AEG realign its global operations amid an aggressive push in Europe, with Superstruct having purchased London’s Boiler Room from DICE two weeks ago.

In other words, there’s quite a lot happening in the European events space in particular. And beyond massive deals involving leading players, a number of startups are emerging with niche solutions tailored for individual markets.

Besides Breakevent, that includes the U.K.’s Seat Unique, which specializes in VIP passes for “premium experiences” and secured a $19.1 million extended Series A in August 2024.

Closer to last year’s conclusion, Netherlands-based Celebratix in November announced a $1.2 million raise. Aiming “to unlock event revenue and customer data before, during & after events,” the blockchain ticketing platform already counts several Amsterdam venues as clients.

Photo Credit: Influence Media Partners

Influence Media Partners scores $360 million in debt financing via an inaugural private securitization collateralized by royalties from its portfolio.

Influence Media Partners — a leading music and entertainment company focused on partnering and investing in top music talent — has secured approximately $360 million in debt financing through an inaugural private securitization.

This securitization is collateralized by music royalties from a portion of its total portfolio. The issuance attracted funding from investors like Nuveen, PPM America, Aflac, Pacific Life, and accounts managed by HPS Investment Partners.

The transaction was led by Goldman Sachs and Truist Securities, acting as Co-Structuring and Joint Placement Agents, as well as BlackRock as a Joint Placement Agent. Lynn Hazan, co-managing partner at Influence Media, oversaw this effort on behalf of the company. Prior to joining Influence, Hazan spent over 20 years as part of the C-Suite of Sony Music as GM and CFO.

Attorneys who advised Influence Media in the transaction include Latham & Watkins serving as Securitization Counsel, Schulte Roth & Zabel (SRZ) as Corporate Counsel, and Alter, Kendrick & Baron (AKB) as Music Counsel.

“Securing this funding is a testament to Influence’s thoughtful, disciplined and highly strategic vision that prioritizes artist partnership and strong collaboration. Our strategy has allowed us to amass an exceptional roster of catalogs and artist partners who are the heartbeat of Influence Media,” said Lynn Hazan.

“This new round of financing will enable us to continue expanding our portfolio, unlock new opportunities, and join forces with even more incredible talent. We are grateful to our partners at Goldman, Truist, and BlackRock for their relentless commitment to this accomplishment.”

“BlackRock was thrilled to partner with Influence as both a long-term investor and placement agent in this transaction. We continue to be impressed by the team’s financial discipline and underwriting. Additionally, the high-quality roster of institutional investors in this deal is a testament to the strength of the platform that Lylette, Lynn, and Rene have built,” said Hilary Thorndike, Managing Director at BlackRock.

Founded in 2019, Influence Media’s investment strategy is built on “modern evergreens,” songs and diverse artists with a strong potential for long-term impact on pop culture. Leveraging strategic relationships with funds and accounts managed by BlackRock and Warner Music Group, among others, Influence has invested in over 30 catalogs from a range of successful cross-genre artists and songwriters. Influence’s innovative partnership with Enrique Iglesias marked the company’s first ever NIL deal.

The latest round of capital also follows the launch of Influence’s new independent frontline record label, music publishing, and distribution company, SLANG.

Music startups have crashed across nearly every category, DMN Pro data reveals (Photo: DMN Pro/Digital Music News)

Splashy funding announcements are extremely common in the music industry. But what happens to startups after they exit the media spotlight? It’s not always pretty.

When it comes to startup success, getting the big funding round is just the beginning. Unfortunately for many startups, it’s also the beginning of the end — with a brutal crash, hard pivot, or other unfortunate ending emerging just a few years later.

So how many promising music startups have crashed in the past few years? For our latest Weekly Report, we scoured our database to find out.

Dialing it back to 2020, DMN Pro found more than $320 million in burned cash, with little to show for it. Many of those came from flash-in-the-pan categories like NFTs, though surprising, crashed startups hailed from a wide number of different sub-sectors.

Data was pulled from DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker, which is available to all subscribers. Here’s a closer look at the carnage.

Please note: this report is for DMN Pro subscribers only. Please do not redistribute. Thank you!

Photo Credit: Anthropic

Google has announced another $1 billion investment into Anthropic, bringing its total investment in the AI company to $3 billion. That’s still peanuts compared to Amazon’s total $8 billion investment in the company.

Anthropic is known for its Claude suite of AI models and has been raising capital to expand its computing infrastructure. The new investment gives Google a 10% ownership stake in the start up as well as a large cloud contract between the two companies, as reported by CNBC. Anthropic is in late-stage talks to raise an additional $2 billion at a $60 billion valuation.

In December, Anthropic’s revenue hit an annualized $800M—a rough increase of 10x year-over-year. Most of Anthropic’s revenue comes from enterprise sales. The company was founded by former OpenAI research executives, with the Claude model launching in March 2023. Claude has exploded in popularity as businesses incorporate chatbots across their sales, marketing, and customer service functions.

CNBC reports that the generative AI market is expected to top $1 trillion in revenue over the next decade. Amazon and Microsoft have backed OpenAI while developing their own technologies.

Amazon announced another $4 billion tranche of funds for Anthropic in November 2024. Despite the massive investment, Amazon remains a minority investor and does not have a board seat. But as part of that deal, Amazon Web Services became Anthropic’s “primary cloud and training partner.”

Anthropic debuted Claude 3.5 Sonnet as its most powerful artificial intelligence model yet. “It shows marked improvement in grasping nuance, humor, and complex instructions, and is exceptional at writing high-quality content with natural, relatable tone,” Anthropic said during the announcement of Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

At the time Anthropic introduced ‘Artifacts,’ which it described as a dynamic workspace that allows users to edit and build upon Claude’s creations in real-time. “So much of what we were hearing from enterprise businesses is people are kind of using Claude at the office already,” Daniela Amodei, Anthropic Co-Founder told CNBC in an interview in July 2024.

Photo Credit: Moises by Music AI

Music AI, the company behind Moises, raises $40 million in Series A funding, led by Connect Ventures and monashees.

Music AI, a leading player in the field of AI for audio and music, has successfully raised $40 million in a funding round led by Connect Ventures and prominent Brazilian investor, monashees. Other participants include Kickstart, Samsung Next, Toba Capital, Valutia, and Pelion, along with renowned music industry professionals like Freddy Wexler, 3LAU, and Alexander23.

“We are deeply committed to partnering with ethically led AI companies that appropriately credit and compensate creators for usage of their work,” said Michael Blank, Managing Partner at Connect Ventures, an investment partnership between Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and NEA.

“Music AI’s talent-friendly approach and unparalleled technology is helping them become the trusted and premier AI platform of the music industry. Beyond empowering artists, Moises enhances the creative process for musicians, producers, and content creators worldwide for practice, creation, and collaboration.”

After leading the company’s seed round, monashees is reaffirming its commitment by co-leading the Series A round. “Latin America is a hub of creativity, and we are thrilled to partner with Brazilian founders building a global company at the forefront of a new era powered by AI,” said Eric Acher, co-founder and Managing Partner at monashees, the pioneer venture capital firm from Brazil.

This significant investment follows the remarkable success of the company’s global consumer product, Moises, which has captivated over 50 million users worldwide and was honored as Apple’s iPad App of the Year in 2024. The multi-platform suite of AI tools provided by Moises serves a broad audience, ranging from music beginners and students to world-class musicians and producers.

First launched in 2019 as an AI-first consumer app, the company has evolved into a research powerhouse for AI development that not only empowers creators, producers, and musicians but also serves the broader audio industry. Thanks to its proprietary technologies and industry-leading AI, including the highest quality stem separation, Music AI has attracted industry giants. This has positioned the company at the forefront of a new era in AI-driven audio technologies for both server-side application and edge computing.

“Music AI’s commitment to on-device AI aligns with the future of embedded technology, allowing models to run directly on hardware for faster performance, better privacy, and reduced cloud dependency,” explains Carlos Castellanos, investor at Samsung Next. “Their proprietary models, third-party integration, and on-device AI capabilities ensure reliability, security, and scalability across smartphones, smart TVs, and other connected devices — all while elevating the end-user experience with cutting-edge features.”

Music AI has been advancing a variety of technologies in the field of music. These include Music Information Retrieval (MIR) solutions, which encompass technologies like stem separation, chord recognition, key and beat detection, and music transcription. In 2023, the company expanded its focus to include generative solutions, such as singing voice modelling and assistive music creation.

The company is committed to developing ethical AI solutions strictly trained on fully licensed content that empowers creators by compensating them fairly and that enhances artistic creativity. “Securing this Series A funding underscores the real-world impact our technologies have on the creative industry,” said Geraldo Ramos, CEO of Music AI. “We’re ready to advance our mission of making music innovation accessible to all, and we’re eager to explore new possibilities with a focus on practical applications.”

Spotify non-bundled subscription accounts in 2024 (Digital Music News/DMN Pro Data)

Spotify’s non-bundled, music-only subscriptions virtually disappeared in 2024, according to DMN Pro’s latest intel. But that’s a Spotify feature, not a Spotify bug. Here’s what the latest data shows across all plan types and tiers in the United States, and what this means for streaming royalties going forward.

For those just tuning into this imbroglio: during the first part of 2024, Spotify aggressively shifted its subscribers towards subscription packages that went beyond on-demand music to include audiobooks. More importantly from a financial perspective, the shift allowed the platform to take advantage of statutory royalty discounts that apply to bundles – and shave considerable royalty costs in the process.

Now, several months after the company’s pronounced shift into bundling, there are few signs that Spotify is letting up on this strategy. Here’s the latest data on Spotify’s ‘project bundle’.

Table of Contents

I. Spotify’s Big, Bad Subscription Bundle Is Here to Stay: How We Got Here

II. A Dying Breed: Percentage of Music-Specific Spotify Accounts In the United States as of November 2024

III. Big Bundles = Big Savings: A Look at Spotify’s $100 Million+ Bundling Windfall

IV. Spotify Is Mercilessly Killing Off Its Music-Only Subscribers – Here’s a Look at the Plunge In 2024

V. Further Research: Will Other DSPs Follow Spotify’s Lead?

Please note: this report is for DMN Pro subscribers only, so please don’t redistribute. Thank you!

Photo Credit: Ashley King

Anthropic is reportedly in advanced talks to raise another $2 billion in funding. The deal would value Anthropic at $60 billion—more than triple its valuation from a year ago.

Amazon has invested a total of $8 billion in Anthropic so far. The company was one of the first investors on board in September 2023, dropping a cool $4 billion. The Bezos-founded company then returned in November 2024 with an additional $4 billion investment that was deployed in tranches. This new funding round is being led by venture firm Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The $60 billion valuation includes the money Anthropic plans to raise in this latest funding round. Based on the data from CB Insights, Anthropic would be the 5th most valuable U.S. start-up based on that valuation. Menlo Ventures valued the AI start-up at $18 billion last year shortly after the Amazon funding round.

OpenAI was most recently valued at $157 billion as of October 2024, reflecting the significant investor interest in AI. Elon Musk’s xAI is valued at $50 billion following a $6 billion Series C funding round in December 2024, while Perplexity is valued at $9 billion after securing its latest $500 million funding round.

Anthropic recently agreed to keep guardrails in place to keep copyrighted data from appearing in prompts. Under this new agreement, Anthropic will maintain its implemented filters on responses to users’ queries. It is allowed to expand, improve, optimize, or change the implementation of these guard rails as long as their overall efficacy at preventing the reproduction of copyrighted content is not diminished.

Much of Anthropic’s current funding has come from Amazon, which seeded $4 billion to the startup. Another funding round in November 2024 brings the total investment to $8 billion, with the November investment a convertible note—meaning it will translate to equity at the valuation set in the current round. The Wall Street Journal reports that Anthropic’s annualized revenue recently hit around $875 million. Most of that came from sales to businesses. Anthropic’s main competitor OpenAI recently told investors that it expects to generate $3.7 billion from sales of its premium version of ChatGPT.

Music Industry Funding Breakdown by Type, 2024 (Digital Music News/DMN Pro)

Music industry funding ticked upward in 2024, but year-over-year levels would have plunged if not for a few huge raises. Amid rumblings of a significant rebound, what does 2025 have in store?

Will 2025 offer a funding bounce? While we don’t have an answer to that all-important question, we certainly aren’t without valuable takeaways from 2024. Like with our prior analyses, those takeaways are made possible by DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker, a one-stop database of raises from in and around the music space.

On top of marking a slight YoY increase, 2024 core funding was well above the respective annual totals associated with 2020, 2021, and 2022. But the noticeable funding spike turns into a substantial slip when omitting 2024’s three largest raises (Hipgnosis, Iconic, and Concord).

Here’s a breakdown of the funding picture in 2024, and what it might portend for 2025.

Report Table Of Contents

I. Core Music Industry Funding Grew Slightly In 2024 – But The Total Fell 71% When Omitting the Year’s Three Largest Raises

II. By Raise Type and Quantity, Music AI, Live, Collaboration, snd Superfan Startups Dominated 2024

III. How Does 2024’s Music Industry Funding Stack Up Against Prior Years?

Please note that this report is for DMN Pro subscribers only. Please do not redistribute.

Anghami co-founder and CEO Elie Habib (left) and OSN CEO Joe Kawkabani. Photo Credit: Anghami

About eight months after officially closing a partnership deal with OSN Group, Middle Eastern streaming service Anghami has scored an “up to $55 million commitment” from the same company.

Anghami (NASDAQ: ANGH) revealed that sizable backing via a brief release, after selling a majority interest to Panther Media Group-owned OSN back in November 2023. Per the official announcement, the fresh funding is beginning with an initial $12 million convertible note investment.

Transitioning to the corresponding regulatory disclosures, the $12 million in notes will mature in December 2027, accruing interest at a decidedly healthy 11% annually, per the documents.

Without diving too far into the specifics, Anghami must also prevent its “consolidated cash balance” from falling beneath $1 million “at any time,” the text indicates. And bearing in mind the “convertible” descriptor, if so inclined, OSN can convert the due cash (and interest) into ordinary ANGH shares whenever it likes, the document explains in more words.

Back to Anghami’s actual announcement, CEO Elie Habib in a statement touted the tie-up with OSN, which technically holds a majority interest in the music streaming company.

“The success of this partnership is a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation,” weighed in Habib, who doubles as the CEO of OSN+. “With this new investment from OSN Group, we are poised to elevate the digital entertainment experience for MENA audiences even further and expand our reach.”

Regarding the particulars behind that partnership, the mentioned November 2023 agreement uniting OSN and Anghami set the stage for the April rollout of a revamped entertainment offering. By its own description, Anghami rebuilt the OSN+ video platform from the ground up.

And between its April debut and October 2024, the service enjoyed “41% growth in video streaming subscribers,” per Anghami. Meanwhile, the overall subscriber base consists of “120 million registered users and 3.5 million paid subscribers,” according to the business.

Last month saw Anghami disclose an 18% ARPU spike among direct subscribers to that point in 2024, besides “28% growth in streaming engagement.”

Despite these results and the just-revealed $55 million capital commitment, however, Anghami stock slipped by almost 5% today to 81 cents per share. On top of representing a market cap of about $55 million, the price reflects a nearly 25% falloff since 2024’s beginning – and an even bigger decrease from when ANGH neared $2 at the time of the OSN deal’s April closure.

Photo Credit: Downtown Music Holdings

Virgin Music Group, a division of Universal Music Group, has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Downtown Music Holdings for $775 million. The deal, expected to close in the second half of 2025, will bring together two leading services and technology providers for independent labels, publishers, and music IP owners, while dramatically expanding UMG’s involvement in the indie space.

The acquisition, officially disclosed this (Monday) morning, will enable Virgin Music Group to expand its global footprint and enhance its offerings for independent artists and labels. The combined company will offer a far broader suite of services, including distribution, marketing, rights management, and royalty collection.

The deal follows months of rumblings of a possible sale, with Downtown reportedly consulting with private equity firms in July.

Suddenly, Universal Music Group is a much bigger player in the burgeoning indie space. Once finalized, UMG will enjoy an expanded footprint across numerous tiers of independent distribution (for both artists and labels), not to mention an array of indie-focused monetization and rights management competencies.

Downtown, founded in 2007, has grown into a diversified music services company with divisions spanning artist and label services, distribution, royalty and financial services, and music publishing. Thanks to a string of aggressive acquisitions and expansions over the years, Downtown’s portfolio now includes CD Baby, Soundrop, Curve, FUGA, Songtrust, Found.ee, Sheer Publishing Africa, and homegrown neighboring rights, studio, and artist and label services divisions.

Downtown currently manages more than 50 million music assets from virtually every country worldwide. It serves over 5,000 business clients and 4 million creators across 145 countries, according to stats shared by the company with Digital Music News.

“Justin Kalifowitz, Andrew Bergman, and Pieter Van Rijn have built Downtown Music into one of the most diversified and respected operations in the world,” said JT Myers, Co-CEO of Virgin Music Group.  “This combination enables us to expand on the Downtown legacy and offer the independent music community a dynamic and innovative global infrastructure both in terms of service offering and territorial footprint, and we look forward to working with the Downtown team to serve independent entrepreneurs, artists, and creators with an even broader portfolio of services.”

Justin Kalifowitz, Founder of Downtown Music Holdings, also expressed enthusiasm about the deal, stating, “This is a tremendous recognition of the importance and vitality of independent music, and the value that our company brings to its clients every day.”

Indeed, the deal is happening alongside a growth spurt within the independent music sector that is cramping the market share of major label artist releases. That has prompted a number of strategic changes from the major labels, with acquisitions another weapon to exert more influence in the space.

That said, Downtown Music isn’t focused on music IP ownership — at least not anymore.

Back in 2021, Downtown offloaded a catalog of roughly 145,000 songs to Concord in a deal valued north of $300 million. The decision followed Downtown’s Q4 2020 “strategic review of its business interests,” which involved shifting away from IP ownership in favor of services and other core competencies.

After the deal, Downtown used the proceeds to expand Downtown Music Services, part of a broader effort to focus “exclusively on the fast-growing music services sector to support the extraordinary growth of the independent music economy.”

It may be premature to consider the post-acquisition changes that will happen in 2025. But it’s plausible that Virgin will leave many Downtown sub-divisions intact, in particular CD Baby and FUGA. Both are well-known and established within their distribution niches, with strong brand identities among artists and labels.

Nat Pastor, Co-CEO of Virgin Music Group, emphasized the company’s commitment to supporting independent artists and labels, stating, “This is an investment into the global independent music ecosystem and a commitment to nurture current and future creators and entrepreneurs with world-class support.”

The two companies will continue to operate independently until the deal closes, pending regulatory approvals. Goldman Sachs and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom advised Downtown Music on the transaction, while Kirkland & Ellis and Freshfields advised Virgin Music Group.

Montreal, Québec, Canada, where Stingray is headquartered. Photo Credit: Fenil Patel

Stingray has scored a roughly $353 million (CA$500 million) revolving credit facility and doubled down on plans to continue closing acquisitions.

Montreal-headquartered Stingray Group (trading as RAY.A on the Toronto Stock Exchange) just recently disclosed the bolstered credit facility, which was previously $297 million/CA$420 million and is now set to mature in 2028.

On top of securing a $56 million/CA$80 million increase, Stingray has the option of pursuing “incremental commitments” totaling another $71 million/CA$100 million, for $423 million/CA$600 million overall, according to the Qello Concerts and Stingray Music parent.

Put up by multiple banks and led by the National Bank of Canada, the credit line is expected to provide “additional liquidity for operations and M&A activities,” relayed Stingray, which is said to operate north of 100 radio stations.

Meanwhile, longtime Stingray head Eric Boyko, whose company scooped up music-documentary and concert-film platform The Coda Collection over the summer, underscored these continued buyout ambitions in a statement.

“We are delighted to have the ongoing support from our current banking syndicate and partners as we explore growth opportunities,” weighed in Boyko.

“This new financing greatly enhances our current liquidity and provides optionality for additional commitments as we continue to evaluate and capitalize on market opportunities,” concluded the exec, whose business brought its namesake karaoke app to Vizio smart TVs in October.

Though only time will tell exactly which market opportunities Stingray has in mind, it’s worth noting that the company posted an approximately 53% year-over-year spike in U.S. revenue (to about $23.2 million total, factoring once again at the current USD-CAD exchange rate) for calendar Q3 2024.

“The increase was primarily due to an increase in FAST channel revenues and to an increase in equipment and installation sales related to digital signage,” relayed Stingray, which chalked up about 35% of its total third-quarter revenue to operations in the States.

(Despite accounting for over half of Stingray’s revenue, the Canadian market’s contribution has been hovering around the same level for several quarters running, the newest earnings report shows.)

Notwithstanding the considerable amount of music content available through on-demand video services, YouTube, and others, Stingray isn’t alone in looking to capitalize on free ad-supported streaming offerings.

To name one recent example, Lionsgate and 50 Cent in August announced a FAST channel partnership; the Roku exclusive, aptly called the 50 Cent Action Channel, formally launched today.

AI voice startup PlayAI has announced a $21 million seed round. Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev

Another day, another interesting development in the quick-evolving AI world, where self-described “conversational voice AI startup” PlayAI has announced a $21 million raise.  

Palo Alto-headquartered PlayAI (formerly PlayHT) just recently secured the seed capital, having officially rolled out its core platform closer to the top of 2024. Since then, that platform has received several updates – the latest being the mid-November addition of “PlayDialog.”

Billed as PlayAI’s “most ambitious and powerful end-to-end AI speech model,” the latter is offered alongside a multifaceted “narration and podcast creation tool” called PlayNote, straightforward voice-replication options, and customer-service-geared “AI voice agents,” according to the startup’s website.

There’s ample ground to cover when it comes to these and other offerings – besides PlayAI’s API capabilities and support for third-party LLMs – but Bitski backer Kindred Ventures and 500 Global led the $21 million seed round.

The raise also drew participation from Race Capital, Y Combinator, Aneel Ranadive’s Soma Capital, Jason Gray-founded Pioneer Fund, TRAC (“the first 100% AI-driven VC where data is the investment committee”), and more.

Meanwhile, Kindred founder Steve Jang has signed on as a board observer at PlayAI, which intends to put the $21 million tranche towards investing in its platform and shortening “the time for businesses to build human-quality speech experiences.”

Addressing the raise, PlayAI co-founder and CEO Mahmoud Felfel underscored his belief that “speech as an interface” represents “a massive opportunity.”

“Building voice agents that can converse like humans and autonomously handle complex tasks is no easy feat,” continued the former WhatsApp software engineer Felfel, “and I’m immensely proud of what our team has achieved. This funding will help us deliver our vision of powerful, emotive, and human-like voice interfaces for any application.”

Though PlayAI doesn’t exactly operate within the core industry, its seemingly advanced voice offerings and newest capital influx are indicative of the AI sector’s rapid ongoing evolution.

As most already know, that evolution has brought about unprecedented hurdles for the industry – including but not limited to the training of generative models on protected media without rightsholder permission as well as unapproved soundalike releases. Currently, potential solutions exist in the form of legislation and litigation.

Of course, AI tools are also playing an increasingly significant (legitimate) role in the music world, fueling never-before-heard sounds, a growing collection of decidedly accessible creation options, and pumping out artist-authorized soundalike works, to name a few areas.

Photo Credit: Amazon

On Friday, Amazon announced it has invested $4 billion more into genAI startup Anthropic. This new funding round brings its total investment in the company to over $8 billion yet maintains its position as a minority investor.

Amazon says Anthropic is working closely with Annapurna Labs at AWS on the development and optimization of future generations of Trainium accelerators to advance the capabilities of specialized machine learning hardware. The deep technical collaboration allows the duo to write low-level kernels to directly interface with Trainium silicon, contributing to the AWS Neuron software stack to strengthen Trainium.

Through Amazon Bedrock, Claude has become core infrastructure for tens of thousands of companies seeking reliable, practical AI solutions. Pfizer uses the latest Claude models in Amazon Bedrock to accelerate research and delivery timelines for critical medicines, while saving tens of millions in operational costs. Intuit uses Claude to explain complex tax calculations for millions of users during tax season.

Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine, delivers more accurate responses at twice the speed by using Claude in Amazon Bedrock. The European Parliament uses Claude to power ‘Archibot,’ making 2.1 million official documents instantly searchable and easier to analyze in multiple languages while reducing research time by 80%.

Meanwhile, Anthropic is engaged in a legal battle against Universal Music Publishing Group for what constitutes ‘fair use’ among AI training models. Anthropic asked the courts to dismiss three of the four counts in a case brought in August 2024 by UMPG, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO.

Anthropic has sought to dismiss the ‘contributory’ copyright infringement, ‘vicarious’ copyright infringement, and ‘removal or alteration of copyright management information’ (a violation of the DMCA)—leaving in place the single direct copyright infringement claim.

Music publishers argue Anthropic has committed copyright infringement by training Claude on a vast amount of copyrighted music and lyrics without permission. Anthropic says it has used the materials in a manner that falls under the ‘fair use’ exemption in U.S. copyright law.

The entrance of Jimmy Woo, one of the Amsterdam nightclubs currently using Celebratix. Photo Credit: Paul2

Blockchain-powered “smart ticketing” startup Celebratix has secured $1.15 million (€1.1 million) in fresh funding and disclosed aggressive expansion plans.

The Amsterdam-headquartered ticketing platform’s latest raise came to light in a Dutch-language report from the Netherlands’ Quote. Founded in 2022 by Frank Roskam, Celebratix leverages Solana and aims “to unlock event revenue and customer data before, during & after events,” according to the appropriate website.

That refers in large part to enabling better control over ticketing – with an eye on improved security (especially for resale), organization, and marketing, according to Google’s translation of the mentioned report. Regarding promotion, Celebratix reportedly allows organizers to encourage customers to purchase additional in-app tickets for other attendees, to name one example.

At present, Celebratix says it handles ticketing for around 40 events per month, including happenings at Amsterdam nightclubs as well as festivals like Multigroove. And Roskam, who doubles as CEO, hasn’t hesitated to disclose aggressive international-expansion plans.

These plans already extend to Germany (where the startup recently launched), though the higher-up is also targeting a push into Scandinavia and the U.K.

“With this new funding,” Roskam relayed on LinkedIn, “we’re entering an exciting scaling phase. Having already made waves in the Netherlands and Germany, we’re now gearing up to expand further into the UK, Sweden, and beyond!

“From tackling ticket fraud to empowering event organizers with full control over sales and data, we’re redefining what ticketing can be,” the 26-year-old continued, claiming in a separate statement that his business is “perfectly positioned to challenge the incumbent ticketing companies like Ticketmaster.”

At the intersection of the global expansion and the funding round’s participants, Stockholm VC uBit put up a portion of the capital. So did existing backer (and Creative Clicks founder) Taco Ketelaar, Dutch professional racing driver Giedo van der Garde, and Denise Boekhoorn (Van der Garde’s wife and the daughter of billionaire businessman Marcel Boekhoorn).

Taking a step back, despite the solid financials (and continued criticism) of Live Nation’s well-entrenched Ticketmaster, the ticketing space is hardly lacking funding, competitors, and deals. To be sure, emerging players like Seat Unique are benefiting from multimillion-dollar raises, and StubHub is reportedly (still) plotting a massive IPO.

Meanwhile, TickPick scored a $250 million round in August, CTS Eventim over the summer scooped up Vivendi’s See Tickets (and certain festivals) for $314 million at the current dollar-euro exchange rate, and reports have pointed to Dice’s exploring a sale valuing it in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Photo Credit: Kenny Eliason

Ed-tech platform Conduction raises funding to re-imagine music education across the country and allow students to compose digital songs.

Conduction, the ed-tech platform revolutionizing the music classroom, has announced a $265,000 pre-seed investment from the Richard King Mellon Foundation. The funds will be used to advance the company’s proprietary music software modules, increase corporate partnerships, and expand operations in schools across Pennsylvania and throughout the United States.

Despite efforts to keep music and the arts alive in US schools, millions of students lack access to these programs, according to research from the Arts Education Data Project. For many schools with existing music programs, teachers struggle to engage students with outdated curricula and limited budgets.

Conduction, which meets several national education standards, is designed to enable students to easily create and produce digital songs. Each week, classes vote on their favorite song creations, and Conduction sources local musicians to make music videos playing the classroom’s selected songs within days. With Conduction, individual schools and entire districts can bring music back into the classroom at a fraction of the cost of traditional programs.

Unlike other music platforms, Conduction provides learning experiences that align with the interests of present-day students. Students get to learn beat making, composition and songwriting, sheet music education, and band integration, all with an intense element of student engagement. These modules help increase classroom participation, reduce absenteeism and create new digital education experiences.

“Music is the one school subject that is meant to touch the soul, inspire aw, and light up life — and yet today’s music classrooms fail to do this,” said Joe Maggiore, CEO and co-founder, Conduction. “Music curriculums are often stuck in the past, focusing on topics kids never would want to hear about — like outdated classical music from the 1700s.”

“Today’s students want to become producers, DJs, songwriters, and beatmakers, and our schools are failing to meet them where they are in their interests while providing distinct curricular needs,” Maggiore continued. “We created Conduction to refocus music education on today’s student values while still finding a way to incorporate critically important national music education standards.”

Today, Conduction works with dozens of schools and districts, as well as countless community musicians, to bring students’ digital songs to life. Over the last 12 months, Conduction has seen growing demand for its platform, having spoken to over 100 schools that are fully ready to incorporate the solution into their education programs to enhance the overall student experience. The company also works with corporations interested in sponsoring individual schools by subsidizing the costs of music education.

The board of Trolley, which has announced a $23 million Series B, at a November 8th meeting. Photo Credit: Trolley

Canadian fintech Trolley has announced a $23 million Series B and doubled down on plans “to transform music industry payouts.”

Toronto-headquartered Trolley formally disclosed the multimillion-dollar raise today, after adding SoundCloud and Hopeless Records to its growing list of partners earlier in 2024. Boston’s B2B-focused Wavecrest Growth Partners led the Series B, which also drew participation from existing backer Pace Capital.

Looking ahead to the remainder of 2024 as well as the new year, Trolley intends to use the growth equity funding to expand its market reach and “enhance its platform to better serve the music industry,” according to the nearly decade-old company.

These enhancements will pertain specifically to the industry, the Downtown- and Songtradr-partnered business emphasized. That includes “advanced ID verification” and “comprehensive artist profiles” for the Trust identity-confirmation and risk-management product – besides additional support for the integration of “various royalty calculators.”

Also forthcoming is an effort to increase “the scalability of workflows to support music businesses of all sizes,” per Trolley, which, owing to a “three-year growth rate of 484%,” made its way onto Deloitte’s “Technology Fast 50” list for the second year running in 2024.

“Securing this funding is a significant milestone for Trolley,” weighed in founder and CEO Tim Nixon, whose company is said to process payouts to over 210 countries and territories across the music sector, the content-creation space, and more. “The music industry has been at the heart of what we do, and this funding allows us to double down on our commitment to support artists and music businesses globally.

“We’re dedicated to bridging gaps left by existing solutions, ensuring our platform remains the most trusted and capable on the market,” Nixon proceeded. “This funding will enable us to further develop our platform, equipping businesses to manage payouts seamlessly across borders, providing creators, artists, on-demand workers, and suppliers with reliable, compliant access to the global market.”

As highlighted, 2024 has delivered several new industry tie-ups for Trolley – the most recent being a late-October union with Distro Nation. According to Live Nation vet Jon Baltz, co-founder and CEO of Distro Nation, the pact is enabling his company “to pay artists a week earlier than before, and the process has never been smoother.”

Photo Credit: Amarjeet Singha, Jay Mehta, Sujar Parekh, Anmol Kukreja, Roydon Bangera

Warner Music India takes a minority stake in ticketing and live events platform SkillBox as WMG bets on emerging market growth.

Warner Music India (WMI) announced a minority stake in ticketing and live events platform SkillBox as the broader Warner Music Group bets on emerging market growth in the region. The partnership aligns the platform’s ambition to diversify and expand its services within the music and entertainment landscape.

Founded in 2020, Warner Music India rapidly gained a foothold in the domestic market, and aims to become a dominant player by expanding its reach across regional music, global partnerships, and live entertainment.

Managing director of WMI, Jay Mehta, is adopting a “three-pronged approach” to ensure Warner’s success. This includes bringing Indian music to a global audience, establishing itself as a major cultural force in India, and securing a top-three market position in terms of revenue and market share by the end of the upcoming fiscal year. This investment in SkillBox marks a significant move in that strategy.

SkillBox was co-founded by Amnol Kukreja and Sandip Ranjhan, with Roydon Bangera and Amarjeet Singha joining as part of the founding team. Initially, the platform was only a ticketing platform. Since then, it has evolved into a full-service live entertainment company that offers artist tours, ticketing solutions, and branded event experiences. The platform boasts over 1.5 million users, who it taps for community-driven events, artist management, and live technology solutions.

For WMI, the investment represents an opportunity to reach more fans and offer artists a streamlined approach to live performances. SkillBox hopes to expand its artist services in addition to its technological capabilities.

“Investing in SkillBox blends perfectly with Warner Music India’s aim of being an artist-first, fan-first company,” says Mehta, adding that live entertainment is on the verge of substantial growth, and this collaboration could create “dynamic new opportunities” in India’s fast-growing entertainment market.

The global music giant has set its sights on emerging markets like India and China as key areas for expansion, according to Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl. He recently highlighted India as a high-growth potential market and emphasized that WMG is actively seeking acquisition opportunities to solidify a strong foothold in the region.

SkillBox is expected to play an essential role in WMI’s diversification efforts, particularly in live events, merch, and brand partnerships. The investment adds to the company’s ongoing strategy of growing its artist roster and generating multiple revenue streams beyond traditional music sales, largely comprising digital streaming and YouTube royalties.

“Our investment in SkillBox allows us to expand the services we offer to artists, connecting them with fans across India,” said Alfonso Perez Soto, Warner Music’s EVP for recorded music and corporate development.

The live entertainment space in India is continuing to develop, but major players like Warner Music India are eager to tap into that growth. The potential for live music events in such a diverse market is significant, with millions of fans and a thriving independent music scene that spans multiple languages and genres. As more companies look to capitalize on India’s live entertainment sector, Warner Music’s early foray into this space gives it a stronger position in the region.

Hipgnosis has revealed a nearly $1.5 billion asset-backed securitization (ABS). Photo Credit: Hipgnosis

Another day, yet another asset-backed securitization – this time from Blackstone’s Hipgnosis, which has formally announced a $1.47 billion deal.

The appropriate catalog investor reached out with word of the securitization, which arrives on the heels of similar moves from Concord as well as Duetti. However, as many know, the newest ABS also follows a hard-fought battle for Hipgnosis Songs Fund, or the Merck Mercuriadis-founded fund that scooped up all manner of prominent song rights during a much-publicized landgrab.

Multiple twists and turns later, the Hipgnosis Songs Fund saga concluded earlier this year, when Blackstone topped the aforementioned Concord with a roughly $1.6 billion bid to take the company private.

Royalties from the over 45,000-track catalog in question, featuring works from Neil Young, Christine McVie, Rodney Jerkins, Dierks Bentley, and more, are backing the $1.47 billion ABS, per Blackstone and Hipgnosis.

(Technically, several other high-profile catalog deals, including with the likes of Justin Bieber, were spearheaded by Hipgnosis Song Management, which had been under Blackstone’s control long before the HSF privatization. Those distinct song rights don’t appear to have factored into today’s asset-backed securitization, though HSM itself rolled out a smaller ABS back in August 2022.)

As we’ve charted in detail, a surprising number of Hipgnosis entities, including but definitely not limited to the main Hipgnosis Songs Fund as well as its Hipgnosis Song Management “investment advisor,” were making moves at the brand’s peak.

But with the take-private dust having largely settled, and with Blackstone now fully behind each of the involved companies, the release pertaining to the securitization refers to the overarching operation simply as “Hipgnosis.”

Returning to the actual MUFG Securities-structured ABS, the notes at hand, having received an A- rating from KBRA, attracted 25 investors, per Hipgnosis and Blackstone.

Therefore representing “one of the most diversified ABS issuance for music rights to date,” the securitization will enable Hipgnosis to pay down “existing debt in full and support future acquisitions,” higher-ups indicated.

“With this ABS refinancing completed,” Hipgnosis CEO Ben Katovsky and CFO Dan Pounder elaborated in a joint statement, “we will continue to work on expanding the investor base with further institutionalisation of the asset class leveraging Hipgnosis’ proprietary technology and data analytics platform across underwriting, monitoring and reporting.”

On the debt front, the previously highlighted Hipgnosis Songs Fund buyout also saw Blackstone assume the company’s sizable pile of debt, which had prevented the business from exploring additional IP purchases (and complicated operations in different ways) for some time before it was taken private.

And when it comes to future acquisitions, it will, of course, be interesting to see which bodies of work Hipgnosis buys down the line. As things stand, the sub-sector is populated by more deep-pocketed potential purchasers than ever, and Hipgnosis remains entangled in an ugly payments-related battle with Barry Manilow.

Discord-focused fanbase-development and -monetization startup Levellr has announced a $1.75 million raise, brought on a new chairman, and disclosed expansion plans for 2025. Photo Credit: Alexander Shatov

About 14 months after scoring a $1 million pre-seed round, Discord-focused fanbase-development startup Levellr has announced a $1.75 million raise.

London-headquartered Levellr, which says its north of 65 clients include both Warner Music and Universal Music, just recently disclosed the newer capital influx. According to the three-year-old business, execs from companies including Riot Games, Amazon, and Discord itself participated in the round and are poised to provide valuable “insights and connections” moving forward.

Now with 22 team members across the U.S. and Europe, Levellr says it intends to take its operations “to the next level” with the fresh funding. Those plans include forthcoming support (expected to arrive sometime next year) for Reddit. As things stand, Levellr software integrates directly into Discord and Telegram, per higher-ups.

Closer to the present, SuperAwesome founder Dylan Collins has come aboard as chairman. Elaborating on the move in a long-form LinkedIn post, Collins touched on the perceived commercial potential of Discord for brands.

“The ‘why Levellr?’ question is maybe best answered with ‘why Discord?’,” Collins wrote in part. “Discord continues to grow (now ~200m MAU), especially in interesting verticals (gaming, music, sport, crypto, AI) but fundamentally propelled by the Gen Z/Alpha demographic rotation*** which is still early.”

Bringing the focus back to the core industry, different platforms with generally young userbases, chief among them Roblox, have proven lucrative on multiple levels in recent years.

Coldplay made its way into the digital world with a promotional effort last month, but October’s headlines weren’t entirely positive for Roblox. And Fortnite, the userbase of which is reportedly a bit older than Roblox’s, has welcomed Weezer, Snoop Dogg, and several other artists during the past month alone.

Meanwhile, the broader superfan-monetization space – based on Levellr’s declaration that “a Discord user can be six times more valuable than a non-Discord user,” there’s considerable overlap here – is receiving more attention than ever from the music sphere.

At the points’ intersection, August saw Amazon Music dive into Discord with a “Listening Party” activity. Additional fanbase-development strategies yet, on Discord and elsewhere, are presumably forthcoming in the final stretch of 2024 and particularly the new year.

Photo Credit: Pibox

Audio and video collaboration platform Pibox announces $1.2 million in financing ahead of launch.

Los Angeles-based Pibox has secured $1.2 million to launch its audio and video collaboration tools for creatives. Investors include Presto Ventures, Globalive Capital, and Startup Wise Guys.

Techstars alums with customers ranging from Sony Music Publishing to Universal Music Publishing Group, Epidemic Sound, Bleeding Fingers by Hans Zimmer, and many more, Pibox will use the funding to expand into the US market and to serve more use cases and customers across music, broadcasting, and advertising.

As a part of this financing, Pibox recently received funding from Google for Startups. The partnership will also help the company add AI-rich features to its offerings.

“We are determined to build the best place for content collaboration and management for teams working at a high professional level with audio and video,” says Pibox co-founder and CEO Ivan Talaichuk, who is also a music producer and creative. “I set out to solve my own problem because I hate switching between multiple apps to work on my creative content. It was scattering my mind, so I decided to connect everything in one place.”

By combining content collaboration, messaging, and other file management features in a single place, Pibox connects every step in the creative process, keeping all the files, comments, and feedback together. It allows private interaction and high-level oversight, so that collaborators can riff together and leaders can see how projects are faring.

Pibox lets teams customize and go deep via metadata fields and management, playlists, custom integrations, and reports. Pibox’s robust features, inspired by its customers’ needs and practices, have boosted team efficiency by 86% and sparked new and better ideas, as creatives spend less time trying to understand what edits need to happen, and more time making great sound and picture.

“A complex but simple-to-use app is a great creativity vortex for a new era of creative collaboration,” explains Talaichuk. “We experienced this ourselves: After launching the initial idea, a lot of unbelievable drivers appeared that fired up our team. We saw that after combining Chat + Files, Pibox started evolving as a living organism mutating and mixing solutions inside. Such infinite possibilities just blew our minds, and we understood how powerful it can be.”

Photo Credit: Duetti

About eight months after closing a $90 million round, indie-focused catalog investor Duetti has announced $114 million in fresh funding.

Duetti reached out today with word of its latest capital influx, stemming in large part from an $80 million asset-backed securitization. Touted by representatives as “the first instance of independent music rights being securitized with institutional Wall Street investors,” this Barclays-structured securitization arrived on the heels of Concord’s own ABS.

Meanwhile, the remaining $34 million resulted from equity financing attributable to Flexpoint Ford as well as existing backers Nyca Partners and Viola Ventures, according to Duetti. Unsurprisingly, the company, which says it deals in tracks that are at least two years old with north of 500,000 annual streams apiece, intends to use the newly obtained capital to bankroll additional IP purchases.

But Duetti also touched on plans to “expand its proprietary forecasting, pricing, sourcing, and marketing technology” with the just-secured $114 million. These tech improvements will fuel “even better data-driven deals with fast turnarounds,” according to the business, which is eyeing a variety of marketing and sync opportunities to boot.

Plus, reps pointed to New York City-based Duetti’s objective of expanding in cities including Los Angeles and Miami. All told, the company has raised north of $235 million since launch – “more than any other music startup in the past three years,” per the same reps.

“We believe we are leading the way in educating the capital markets on the significant long-term value of the independent music sector,” weighed in Duetti co-founder and CEO Lior Tibon. “The number of independent artists is growing at an unprecedented rate, and Duetti is here to ensure they have access to differentiated financing solutions.

“Duetti will now be able to utilize more diverse and efficient financing sources, enabling us to significantly expand and offer more funding options for independent artists, outside of the major label ecosystem,” concluded the former Deutsche Bank associate and Tidal COO Tibon.

Shifting the focus to the broader catalog landscape, October of 2024, in keeping with well-documented trends, has delivered fewer purchases than its 2023 counterpart. (DMN Pro’s one-stop Music Industry Funding Tracker has compiled these and other deals along with dates, valuation information, the exact rights at hand, and more.)

Nevertheless, the current month has brought several particularly high-value transactions – among them Sony Music’s reportedly $400 million deal for Pink Floyd’s recordings and NIL, Litmus Music’s pact with Randy Newman, and Concord’s $217.3 million play for a collection of Daddy Yankee assets.

A live performance from the Plain White T’s, one of the many acts who have recorded music featured in the over million-song catalog of Concord. Photo Credit: Justin Higuch

Concord has officially issued another $850 million in senior notes secured by royalties from all manner of commercially prominent works.

Nashville-headquartered Concord today confirmed the close of its third securitization, which we previously highlighted earlier in October. At the time of this initial coverage, however, the focus was largely on a $217.3 million catalog purchase bankrolled by the notes.

Though Concord didn’t immediately disclose the exact assets involved, higher-ups subsequently elaborated that the play encompassed a substantial portion of Daddy Yankee’s body of work.

All told, the five-year notes are said to be backed by “royalties from a pool of catalogs containing over one million songs,” recorded by the likes of the Beatles, Phil Collins, Genesis, and many others.

Furthermore, with its overall music IP valuation now billed at approximately $5.1 billion, Concord hasn’t hesitated to spell out that “additional acquisitions” yet could be in the cards for the just-obtained capital.

Also forthcoming (albeit not directly acknowledged in Concord’s official release) is a new California office for the company, which is set to relocate its Golden State division from Los Angeles to Beverly Hills sometime during Q3 2025, according to Connect CRE.

That lease will cover a 32,241-square-foot space, including a penthouse and the entire sixth floor of the 110,000-square-foot building at hand, per the mentioned source.

Long allied with Apollo (NYSE: APO), Concord tapped the latter’s Apollo Global Securities unit to structure and lead an investor syndicate for the securitization, higher-ups communicated. FTI Consulting was the transaction’s “backup manager,” Concord relayed as well.

In a statement, Concord head Bob Valentine touted the securitization as “another significant milestone,” thanked Sony Music-partnered Apollo “for helping us create a long-term capital structure that supports our growth,” and emphasized a continued focus “on our artists and the incredible art they create.”

Meanwhile, Concord itself described the securities as one component of an “ongoing effort to strategically grow and monetize its music assets and position the company as a consequential force in the music industry.”

Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see exactly which moves come with that “consequential force” push. As many will recall, Concord didn’t ultimately purchase Hipgnosis Songs Fund, but it did submit multiple bids for the far-reaching collection of music IP.

Additionally, the business’s Mojo Music & Media and Round Hill buyouts brought a cumulative total of $606.3 million worth of music IP into the fold, a KBRA analysis revealed.

Photo Credit: Michal Mrozek

X/Twitter rival Bluesky has announced a $15 million Series A funding raise, with a promise to provide a ‘path to monetization’ for creators. That’s a stark difference from the Elon Musk-owned platform currently fighting not to pay music publishers.

The funding round was led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Amir Shevat of Darkmode, co-creator of Kubernetes Joe Beda, and others. Bluesky says its investors share their philosophy that technology should serve the user, not the reverse.

“This does not change the fact that the Bluesky app and the AT Protocol do not use blockchains or cryptocurrency, and we will not hyperfinancialize the social experience through tokens, crypto-trading, NFTs,” the announcement reads. Bluesky says the fundraise will help it to continue supporting and growing the Bluesky community, investing in Trust and Safety, and supporting the ATmosphere developer ecosystem.

Bluesky also plans to develop a subscription model for features like higher-quality video uploads, profile customization, and more. The platform will always be free to use and Bluesky commits to not upranking accounts who subscribe to a payment tier just because they pay (unlike Elon Musk’s X/Twitter).

“We’re proud of our vibrant community of creators, including artists, writers, developers, and more and we want to establish a voluntary monetization path for them as well. Part of our plan includes building payment services for people to support their favorite creators and projects,” Bluesky says. Think of it like an in-platform Patreon, where subscribers to creators can pay them directly for the content they create on the platform.

Bluesky now has more than 13 million users and has been rapidly growing as entire countries experience an exodus from X/Twitter. Elon Musk’s row with Brazil over the platform caused Bluesky membership to surge during the brief period that X/Twitter was banned in Brazil.

Music collaboration startup Highnote has announced a $2.5 million round. Photo Credit: Highnote

Music collaboration startup Highnote has announced a $2.5 million raise with support from Dropbox Ventures.

New York City-based Highnote disclosed the multimillion-dollar capital influx today, after arriving on the scene back in 2022. With co-founders including Songtrust vet Paulina Vo, Chris Muccioli (previously with Spotify and Splice), and Jordan Bradley (who doubles as CEO), the collaboration platform bills itself specifically as “the best way to discuss and organize notes on any audio file.”

On the features front, Highnote offers lossless streaming, timestamped commenting (including voice comments), group chat, file-version management, secure storage, and more, according to its website. Monthly plans vary in price from free (15 tracks/50GB cloud storage) to $30 for Studio, which supports unlimited tracks and 5TB of cloud storage, the appropriate page shows.

Returning to the funding round, Highnote, as mentioned, has raised $2.5 million from Dropbox Ventures (which is zeroing in on “the next generation of apps and tools”) as well as existing backers Afore Capital, Character Capital, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, and Precursor Ventures.

Also participating in this latest round are new angel-investor execs associated with Figma, Atlassian, Abstract, and Dropbox, besides returning angel investors at SoundCloud, Auth0, and Splice.

(On top of that long list of Highnote investors, other music collaboration startups, among them Baton, Submix, and most recently Ampollo, have scored multimillion-dollar raises, complete with a number of backers, of their own.)

Looking to the bigger strategic picture, Highnote intends to capitalize on the funds by exploring “AI-powered features aimed at enhancing the creative process,” with “comment summarization, tone analysis, and creative recommendations” all in the cards, per higher-ups.

And closer to the present, October 15th delivered a fresh Dropbox integration through which users can automatically open any stored audio files directly via Highnote. Meanwhile, November will see the collaboration startup roll out “a full 2-way integration, creating a seamless audio layer on top of any Dropbox account,” the business indicated.

Addressing his company’s $2.5 million raise, co-founder and CEO Jordan Bradley touched on the funding’s ability to accelerate expansion plans at the intersection of AI and collaboration.

“As AI accelerates content creation, content collaboration is at an all-time high,” communicated the former Mighty lead product designer. “We built the industry’s best audio workflow layer so that collaborators can stay organized, efficient, and in control—no matter how fast things are moving.

“This partnership with Dropbox Ventures allows us to deepen our commitment to creators and accelerate our plans to provide a foundational layer for AI powered audio workflows,” concluded Bradley.

Photo Credit: SonoSuite

SonoSuite announces a minority investment from Dinastía to drive strategic growth.

Barcelona-based music tech company SonoSuite announces the addition of a key strategic client as investor, Dinastía Inc, from Colombia. Dinastía says it has a strong industrial interest and a strategic fit with SonoSuite’s core activity; it’s already a ‘valued client’. The partnership is expected to enhance distribution opportunities for all parties and further reinforce their collaborative relationship.

Dinastía is firmly plotted in the urban music space, with an eye towards expanding its presence in the Latin American market and making them partners for SonoSuite. The funds raised from this investment will be used to drive growth initiatives, and Dinastía will hold a minority stake in SonoSuite.

“We are glad to welcome this strategic investor who provides valuable industry insights, as part of our cap table. At the same time, the founders retain a substantial majority of shares and hold control over the company,” said Sebastián Mañana, CEO of SonoSuite.

SonoSuite is a software as a service company that operates a white-label platform that enables indie record labels and music distributors to deliver their catalogs, and manage royalty payouts and reports. Its partners include SoundExchange, Merlin, PPL, IFPI, and Worldwide Independent Network (WIN).

The company joined the ‘Friends of Impala’ initiative in 2023, designed to facilitate collaboration between companies and the independent music sector.

SonoSuite is expanding its business at a key moment, as independent artists are seeing growing market share. The company is competing to provide services within an increasingly competitive field of digital indie distributors, including mainstays like Distrokid and Tunecore.

To that end, Universal Music Group completed its acquisition of European independent music group [PIAS] earlier this month. That acquisition includes [Integral], which will merge with UMG’s Virgin Music Group.

Reykjavik, Iceland, where music education startup Moombix is headquartered. Photo Credit: Einar H. Reynis

Music lessons marketplace Moombix has announced the close of its £1.9 million (currently $2.48 million) seed round and unveiled plans to expand into the United Kingdom.

Reykjavik-headquartered Moombix, which bills itself specifically as “an all-in-one solution for online music education,” disclosed the funding and the imminent expansion today.

Established by former longtime Microsoft exec Aleksandar Arsovski and musician Margret Juliana Sigurdardottir (who founded children-focused music education app Mussila as well), Moombix enables verified musicians to set their own prices for 30-minute one-on-one livestream lessons, per the appropriate website.

Also according to Moombix’s site, teachers describe their qualifications (and define their primary “field of interest”) via seemingly in-depth profiles, which prospective students can filter when searching for a professional.

Prices range from £30 to £300 ($39 to $392) per half-hour session, discounts are available for multiple lessons purchased at once, Moombix takes a 20% commission, and the business has options in place for schools to promote themselves, the site indicates.

Shifting from insightful supplementary details and back to the seed raise, Iceland’s Frumtak Ventures led the round, which also drew participation from several angel investors, Moombix relayed.

And as mentioned, the capital is expected to set the stage for the startup’s strategic launch in the U.K., where higher-ups say approximately 200 teachers have already signed up to offer lessons. Against the backdrop of continued buildouts in the music education space – referring mainly to virtual resources – it’ll be worth monitoring the company’s expansion results moving forward.

Regarding these buildouts, however, Moombix is hardly without competition. Closer to the top of 2024, Spotify began testing the video learning waters in the U.K. Though the involved Spotify Courses still aren’t live in the U.S. and extend to areas well beyond the music world, they’re free to access through November 30th, the U.K. landing page shows.

Subsequently, Billie Eilish in June brought 30 tracks to Helsinki-headquartered music education platform Yousician, which, unlike Moombix, offers access to interactive learning software for a monthly subscription fee.

Then, August saw Sony Music Entertainment license Duolingo in connection with the language app’s comparatively new music courses. We’ll have to wait a bit longer for possible up-to-date data about the commercial results behind this music offering; Duolingo has teed up its Q3 earnings for November 6th.

Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa

AGBA Group Holding Limited has completed its merger with Triller Corp. The new company will operate as Triller Group Inc—under the ILLR stock ticker.

The merger comes after Triller settled a breach of contract dispute with Sony Music for $4.6 million. Triller was accused of failing to pay licensing fees for several stars including Britney Spears, Harry Styles, Janis Joplin, and more. The lawsuit also accused Triller of copyright infringement for streaming music without licensing agreements in place.

Sony alleges that Triller stopped making music licensing payments entirely in March 2022, when the publisher terminated their licensing agreement with the social media company. The situation led to the lawsuit filed in August 2022 to address the copyright infringement and unpaid licensing fees. Sony’s licensing agreement with Triller was first established in 2016, with Triller first missing payments in 2022. A federal judge sided with Sony Music on its breach of contract claim and ordered Triller to make payments in April 2023—with the two companies reaching a settlement agreement in July 2023.

The settlement resolved the breach of contract claim Sony Music had against Triller, but it continues with a separate claim for copyright infringement. Triller has sought to resolve its various legal disputes amid ongoing financial challenges. Investors are looking at the problems TikTok is facing in the United States with multiple lawsuits and hoping this is the opportunity to pounce as a would be competitor.

“This merger is terrific news for both the users and the content creators of our app. Whether they are fans of BKFC, or they watch sports and entertainment events around the world on TrillerTV, or are using our brand and creator tools to find their audience, they now have in Triller an innovative, exciting partner,” says Bob Diamond, Chairman of Triller Group Inc.

Following the completion of the Merger, former AGBA shareholders and former Triller stockholders own 30% and 70% of the combined company’s outstanding common stock, respectively. Triller Corp. owns Triller Sports, Bare-Knuckle Fighting Championship, Amplify.ai, and Triller TV a global PPV, AVOD, and SVOD streaming service.

Children’s audio platform Yoto has announced $15 million in additional funding and disclosed plans to spearhead an aggressive global buildout. Photo Credit: Yoto

Just months after revealing a $22 million injection, children’s audio platform Yoto has scored “a $15 million funding package” from HSBC UK and set its sights on an aggressive international expansion.

London-headquartered Yoto, now approaching its 10th year as a company, reached out with word of the $15 million raise. Put up specifically by HSBC UK’s Growth Lending Fund, the capital will help the Universal Music– and Warner Music-partnered recipient expand into additional markets, higher-ups signaled.

As things stand, Yoto operates in five countries, having launched in Australia this past July. Now, however, the self-described “screen-free audio player for children” has made clear that it’s “looking to increase its reach organically beyond these existing international markets.”

In terms of anticipated accomplishments, Yoto says the $15 million at hand will lay the groundwork for an almost 100 percent increase in its export volume as well as an adjacent revenue spike. “The business is expecting to double revenues as a result of the funding,” reads the relevant line from Yoto’s official release.

At the intersection of the export and revenue goals, manufacturing of the namesake Yoto Player and the content cards (each featuring an audiobook, a collection of songs, or different audio entertainment) it supports will ramp up as well, the business indicated.

North of 1,200 of these cards are already available for purchase, including greatest-hits volumes from Queen and the Beatles. On the appropriate website, the Queen and Beatles cards are available to purchase for a cool $14.99 apiece, with a 52-minute duration for the former and 29 minutes for the latter.

Elaborating on his company’s objectives for the newly secured funding, Yoto CFO Ben Averis emphasized the above-outlined “ambitions to become truly global.”

“This funding provides a great leverage point to build on our rapid growth. We have ambitions to become truly global – supporting more communities around the world and providing high-quality, child-centric audio content that fosters creativity and independence in young listeners,” communicated Averis.

“We were presented with various funding opportunities and are glad to have chosen to partner with HSBC UK. The bank’s strong trade links will help us scale our manufacturing and deliver even greater value to our customers,” concluded the Pricewaterhouse Coopers vet.

Photo Credit: atVenu

Sixth Street Growth makes a $130 million investment in atVenu to further its position as a leading live event software and payments solution provider.

Leading global provider of live event software and payments solutions, atVenu, has announced a $130 million equity investment from Sixth Street Growth. The partnership will build upon and accelerate the company’s impressive historical growth into new live event markets, including sports, food, and beverage, while maintaining its position as the industry standard in music merchandise.

Founded in 2012, atVenu provides a purpose-built live event platform to the world’s largest touring artists, merchandisers, record labels, venue operators, festival promoters, and food/beverage concessionaires. The platform’s inventory management, forecasting, and multi-stakeholder financial settlements, coupled with its integrated point-of-sale, aim to deliver a unique value proposition catering to the complex needs of pop-up commerce environments.

Customers using atVenu have reported upwards of 20% revenue uplift compared to generic point-of-sale systems due to event-specific inventory management, multi-location sales controls, and faster throughput.

During an event, atVenu makes managing locations, inventory, and the deployment of point-of-sale hardware easy while also providing real-time data required for organizers to optimize their events. This platform, unlike others designed for traditional retail, ensures maximized revenue within the limited window of an event.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Sixth Street for atVenu’s next chapter,” said Ben Brannen, atVenu Co-Founder and President. “The firm’s vision and conviction on the growth opportunities in live events entirely aligns with ours. The opportunity to join forces with their team and deploy our combined resources to expand atVenu’s reach is incredibly exciting.”

“Over the past decade, atVenu has been intensely focused on helping our customers execute successful and profitable events,” said Derek Ball, atVenu Co-Founder and CEO. “Sixth Street clearly shares this mission and clarity of purpose and will add tremendous value as our impact on this industry continues to accelerate.”

Currently, atVenu processes over $1.6 billion in merchandise and food and beverage volume annually. It is trusted at over 125,000 events each year, ranging from small clubs and mid-size amphitheaters to some of the to some of the largest stadiums, venues, festivals, and sporting events worldwide. The company has established itself as the leader in the music merchandise space and continues to grow into new event markets and geographic territories.

“atVenu’s innovative solutions, inspired by the founders’ deep roots and firsthand experience in the live events world, empower stakeholders across the value chain,” concluded Michael Bauer, Principal at Sixth Street Growth. “We are confident that atVenu is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the exciting opportunity set ahead and we look forward to supporting them on that journey.”

Sixth Street’s investment is a result of cross-platform collaboration between its sports and media investing expertise as well as its growth investing business and experience supporting companies across the payments and fintech space.

Music Industry Investment by Category, Q3 2024 (Source: DMN Pro)

In keeping with existing 2024 trends, third-quarter music industry funding rounds fell well short of their Q3 2023 counterparts in both volume and cumulative value.

Even so, the newly completed quarter wasn’t without signs of a possible rebound.

These and other insights are made possible by the Music Industry Funding Tracker, DMN Pro’s one-stop database of raises from in and around the music world. The Tracker, which complements this report, includes round types, amounts, participating investors, and more dating back to 2014. It also reveals several interesting funding trends developing this year.

In general, those trends haven’t been positive – referring in part to material year-over-year falloffs in multiple months and whole quarters.

Furthermore, the sizable decreases would have been more significant if not for massive 2024 raises like the $1 billion secured by Iconic Artists Group in February.

Here, we’ve crunched the numbers to see what changed during 2024’s third quarter and to bring out pertinent takeaways. Also included is an updated breakdown of year-to-date funding across Q1 through Q3 of 2023 and 2024.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction: An Overview of Music Industry Funding in Q3 2024

II. Q3 2024 Funding by the Numbers: Industry and Industry-Adjacent Companies Raised $425.28 Million Across 16 Rounds

Graph: Q3 Music Industry Funding by Total Value, 2023 v. 2024

III. Q3 2024 Funding by Category – What Kinds of Companies Are Investors Betting On?

Graph: Q3 2023 Music Industry Funding Rounds by Company Type

Graph: Q3 2024 Music Industry Funding Rounds by Company Type

IV. 2024’s Industry Funding in the Bigger Picture – YTD Figures Show a Massive Capital Decrease

Graph: Total Q1-Q3 Music Industry Funding, 2023 v. 2024

Please note: this report is for DMN Pro subscribers only. Please do not redistribute — we appreciate it!

Music industry funding suffered a double-digit year-over-year decrease in Q3 2024 despite some signs of a possible acceleration during the quarter’s second half. Photo Credit: Alexander Schimmeck

Music industry companies raised $425.28 million during Q3 2024, which brought a funding acceleration on a quarterly basis but fell far short of the sum attached to Q3 2023.

These stats come from an analysis of DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker, a searchable and filterable database of raises from in and around the industry. While DMN Pro is set to release an in-depth breakdown of the third-quarter numbers later this week, even a top-level look at the figures provides telling insight.

In part, that’s because of the material funding slide attributable to 2024’s initial nine months. We’ve charted the apparent decrease in raise volume and size throughout the year, and DMN Pro’s forthcoming weekly report will also compare the first, second, and third quarters of 2024 with their 2023 counterparts.

Keeping the focus on Q3 2024 for the time being, the $425.28 million in cumulative funding was spread across 16 rounds for an average of $26.58 million apiece. TickPick laid claim to the largest of the rounds by securing a $250 million growth investment in late August.

Overall, Q3 2024’s funding was significantly beneath that delivered by Q3 2023, north of $2.56 billion across 30 rounds. The older period’s average round size was $85.43 million, in excess of three times more than the average for 2024’s third quarter.

However, there’s more to the story than the 83.4% YoY funding slip from Q1 to Q3 2023 and the same window in 2024. The one-stop Music Industry Funding tracker compiles raises from directly within the industry and from adjacent spheres. Falling squarely into the latter category for Q3 2023 were Amazon’s $1.25 billion Anthropic investment and the $760 million Partners IV fund.

Anthropic is, of course, an AI giant, and The Raine Group’s Partners IV may invest not solely in music companies, but in “sports, media, entertainment and gaming” businesses as well.

Nevertheless, after booting the two rounds’ combined $2.01 billion from Q3 2023’s total, we’re left with a little over $552.86 million – for a YoY falloff of 23.1% in any event.

Despite the decrease, Q3 2024 didn’t lack encouraging funding takeaways, including the mentioned strong showing between mid-August and mid-September, TickPick’s noted quarter-billion-dollar raise, and others that will be explored in the weekly report. Moreover, this momentum may translate into a higher-volume and larger-value funding landscape in Q4.

And while even an overwhelmingly positive fourth quarter will almost certainly prove unable to boost 2024’s industry funding above 2023 levels, continued trends in the right direction could lay the groundwork for a big 2025.

Photo Credit: Killphonic Rights

Killphonic Rights raises $3 million and forms a partnership with Stilwell Creative Capital.

LA-based management company Killphonic Rights has announced a partnership with Stilwell Creative Capital, who is investing $3 million in working capital for a proportional stake of equity in Killphonic. The new partnership and investment will go toward expanding services for the company’s rapidly growing roster of artists, songwriters, labels, and publishers.

Through this partnership, Stilwell will tap into Killphonic’s deep knowledge base and staff of industry veterans to increase collections and licensing opportunities for the growing catalog of rights the fund has acquired.

“Throughout this process, we were incredibly impressed by the Killphonic leadership team’s innovative approach to right management and the depth of their industry knowledge,” said Stilwell CEO Brian Baum. “In the near term, we feel that Killphonic will be an invaluable partner in monetizing the songs in our catalog. In the long term, we are excited about Killphonic’s potential to build the music industry’s preeminent rights management business.”

The partnership was orchestrated by Amanda Schupf of MAX Music Management and Consulting, who played a pivotal role in both connecting and advising the parties throughout the process. This ensured that both sides aligned on critical terms, market vision, and the future role of Killphonic and Stilwell in the evolving music rights landscape. As part of this partnership, Amanda will be joining the Advisory Boards of both organizations, where she will continue to provide strategic guidance and industry expertise.

“When we went seeking investment, we thought that as a modern music company, we would have to compromise something fairly large for the greater good of our artists and songwriters,” added Killphonic CEO Caleb Shreve. “We can’t believe that we found everything we wanted in Stilwell Creative Capital. CEO Brian Baum is a distinguished financial veteran with an equally top-tier passion for music. In my 25+ years in music, I haven’t met anyone with a stronger love for the art of music. There isn’t a partner other than Stilwell that we could imagine sharing the value and dedication to the art and its artists like we do.”

Before the end of 2023, CEO Caleb Shreve took an overwhelming majority stake after finalizing the repurchasing of equity from the company’s former founders.

Photo Credit: Mark Alexiou, Yoram Ben-Israel, Rebekah Pennington / Ampollo

Music platform Ampollo raises $3.1 million ahead of its official launch, allowing musicians at all levels to collaborate and more.

Ampollo, a new music collaboration platform to enable artists, songwriters, and producers of all levels to practice, record, collaborate, network, and drive revenue, has raised $3.1 million ahead of its official launch.

Co-founded by CEO entrepreneur Yoram Ben-Israel, CMO Mark Alexiou, creator of multiple music-oriented business ventures, and former Sony and Universal artist and startup specialist Rebekah Pennington, the company will provide a range of user-friendly tools and engagement opportunities.

Ampollo empowers musicians and artists to grow their audiences while utilizing the platform’s proprietary studio tools to remix, create with others, and unlock creator and audience rewards. Artists, labels, and other rights holders can also market and distribute music to their already engaged fans to enjoy in an immersive, gamified way, opening up additional revenue streams for the wider music industry.

Some of Ampollo’s key features include stem separation to enable easy remixing of tracks, video and audio recording, stackable audio, preset filters, customizable mixing desks, and social media and audience engagement tools. The platform also serves several other functions, including assisting producers with toplines, beats, and collaboration opportunities, helping songwriters and performers find session players and producer collaborations, providing discovery opportunities for A&R professionals and increasing revenue opportunities for rights holders.

So far, the company has raised $3.06 million (£2.3 million) in early-stage funding from a range of investors across the tech sector, including specialists in music, gaming, community, content, and VR. The company is in discussion with a number of major music companies about further funding partnerships and licensing deals.

In addition to providing resources to individuals, Ampollo has entered agreements and partnered on a range of initiatives with several music industry companies and organizations, including BIMM, The Royal Academy, Studiospares, and Pirate Studios. These will allow members and clients of those bodies to access the full range of services offered by Ampollo. The company has also pledged to support the charitable work of Help Musicians with fundraising activity and donations.

Ampollo has been in beta testing since summer last year, with a wide range of both amateur and professional musicians and artists helping refine the platform and offering. Following this successful process, the platform will formally launch in December. There are still opportunities for exclusive pre-launch invitations and interested parties can email Ampollo to request an access code.

“Everyone deserves the chance to find aligned talent to collaborate with,” says CEO Yoram Ben-Israel. “Utilizing emerging technologies enables the creative process to be accessible to everyone, not limited by their location or network. Ampollo’s core aim is to create new opportunities, find undiscovered talent, enable human connection with both collaborative partners and music fans, and to deliver access to new revenue streams in fun and engaging ways through intuitive tools and resources.”

Photo Credit: Mellomanic

Mellomanic, formerly We Are Giant, secures an additional $6 million funding round to accelerate expansion as the superfan sector ramps up.

Music community platform Mellomanic, previously known as We Are Giant, has announced the closing of a $6 million funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $13.8 million. New and existing investors include Sterling Partners and a range of family offices and individual music industry veterans.

The funding will go toward further scaling up the company, enhancing its centralized music experience for artists and consumers alike. Mellomanic has become known for its exclusive listening parties and community tools that connect fans and artists via unique digital events, in a safe and community-centric space.

Mellomanic currently has over 400,000 monthly active users on the platform, an increase of over 13,000% since January. This surge in engagement highlights the increased demand for thriving superfans spaces and tools that help artists connect with their listeners and attract fans using new and fun methods. Labels like Atlantic Records, Big Loud, Def Jam, Elektra, Sony Music Nashville, and Virgin Music Group have all partnered with Mellomanic.

“We’ve learned so much about music communities and fan behaviors this past year, and wanted our name to reflect that. ‘Mellomanic’ pays homage to the melomaniacs, all types of superfans, embodying the spectrum of emotions that exist within different genres of music and their listeners,” said Andy Apple, Mellomanic CEO.

“It’s been exciting to watch artists and labels leverage our immersive listening parties to release music in exciting, innovative ways, and it’s been special to see superfan communities engage in these live digital experiences that truly range from mellow to manic,” Apple continues. “Ultimately, our goal is to continue providing impactful spaces for fans and artists to come together and celebrate special moments, empowering them to forge enduring relationships while building sustainable communities.”

The foundation of Mellomanic lies within its Collectives, which are genre-focused communities that boost artist discoverability. With curated listening parties, live streams, and virtual festivals in each Collective, artists are able to maximize every moment, from album listening parties to sharing pre-released music. Artist listening parties that have already been featured include Kameron Marlowe, Erin Kinsey, Corey Kent, Big Sean, Luh Tyler, Corook, Paris Paloma, JXDN, and Jordy.

Mellomanic also uniquely serves artists by enabling ways for them to more easily monetize their work and own their fan relationships. This includes sharing and allowing them to own unique fan data points, which help them make informed career decisions.

The platform also obtains music licenses directly that let artists live stream performances without online restrictions. Streams generated on Mellomanic get reported to SoundExchange and the Performing Rights Organizations (PROs), so each user counts as a stream like any traditional streaming service.

Tune.fm ($50 million), FanCircles ($1.44 million), and Miris ($26 million) are among several companies scoring funding rounds in the past 30 days (Pictured: DMN Pro Music Industry Funding Tracker)

Between mid-August and mid-September 2024 alone, music industry companies secured over $360 million in funding. But where’s the money going?

Answering that question (and gaining a better sense of the industry’s direction in the process) is easier than ever thanks to DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker. The one-stop database compiles key information about every funding round from in and around today’s quick-moving music space.

And despite ongoing belt-tightening in the core industry, concerns about the broader economy, and the year-over-year funding decreases we’ve charted for multiple months in 2024, funding rounds are hardly ceasing.

All told, between August 16th and September 16th, our Music Industry Funding Tracker registered $361.92 million in raises — up 258.34% from the same period in 2023. (If not for TickPick’s quarter-billion-dollar August growth investment, 2024’s funding would have risen by 10.81% YoY.) While the increase itself is significant in light of funding trends, the companies that scored the capital are insightful as well.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction: The Industry’s Strong Funding Showing Between Mid-August and Mid-September 2024

II. Music Industry Funding’s Overlap — and Differences — Between Mid-August and Mid-September 2023 and 2024

Graph: Funding Takeaways At a Glance — Mid-August – Mid-September 2023 v. 2024

Graph: Music Industry Funding Rounds by Type, Mid-August – Mid-September 2023 v. 2024

III. Will Investors’ Superfan Bet Pay Off? A Look At the Companies Working to Capitalize on the Latest Industry Focus 

IV. A Funding Dry Spell for Artificial Intelligence in Music? AI’s Slow Mid-August – Mid-September and Other Interesting Takeaways from a Month of Industry Raises

Please note: this report is for DMN Pro subscribers only. Please do not share without prior authorization. Thank you!

Photo Credit: Innovate UK

Salt, the company that provides digital-era rights and royalties solutions for music creators and societies around the world, has announced a £1.1 million pound ($1.44 million) grant from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

The funding accelerates Salt’s investment in AI innovation, further advancing tools designed to empower and safeguard music creators and rights holders. Salt is releasing powerful new AI-enhanced capabilities that can be used across its entire product line, fortifying support for creators at every stage of their journey — from inception through distribution to fair compensation.

According to details shared with DMN, the grant provided by Innovate UK will help unlock operational efficiencies within the industry, with Salt aiming to position itself as a leader in AI-driven rights holder-centric solutions in the music sector. Salt also announced that it is partnering with Queen Mary University for this groundbreaking project, leveraging their renowned expertise in AI and digital music.

A source close to the deal tells Digital Music News that some of the capital from this grant will go to Queen Mary University as part of this partnership. Earlier, the grant was only described as ‘multi-million pound,’ though sources further specified the funding amounts in question.

“Salt is excited to be at the forefront of AI Innovation and the evolution of next-generation tools for the music industry’s creators and rights holders,” says Salt CEO Doug Imrie. “We are delighted to have the experts at Queen Mary University join our mission to ensure that creators’ contributions, rights, accreditation and remuneration are protected across the music industry and benefit from the latest technological advances.”

Simon Dixon, Director of the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in AI & Music at Queen Mary University of London continues: “Our Centre for Digital Music has grown into a world-leading, multidisciplinary research group, responsible for numerous spinout companies and business partnerships with companies large and small. Industry partnerships like these allow us to achieve more real-world impact from our research and give companies access to researchers working at the very edge of what’s possible.”

Web3 streaming platform Tune.fm has reportedly scored a $50 million raise. Photo Credit: Ben Blennerhassett

After kicking off 2024 by scoring “a $20 million commitment of capital,” web3 superfan and streaming platform Tune.fm has reportedly secured another $50 million.

That sizable raise came to light in reports from crypto trades including Cointelegraph, which specified that Global Emerging Markets had put up the sizable tranche. At the time of this writing, the New York City-based VC (a stakeholder in Events.com and much more) didn’t appear to have published a formal release about its Tune.fm support.

However, per the mentioned outlet, this latest raise means the self-described “decentralized music streaming platform and music collectibles marketplace” has obtained a cool $80 million from investors overall.

Besides a reported intention to use the $50 million to provide liquidity for its JAM token – that is, the digital currency behind the Hedera-powered service – Tune.fm doesn’t seem to have disclosed its precise plans for the capital on social media. (Statements published by multiple outlets, purportedly relating to today’s round, appear to be the same as those put out at the time of the January raise.)

In any event, when we last checked in, the startup was zeroing in on a global buildout, the development of a mobile app, and major label licensing deals. Now, Tune.fm’s app is currently live on the Play Store as well as the App Store, and on the international-expansion front, the company is continuing to plug projects from acts such as Moroccan rapper CM Yassir.

According to Tune.fm, said projects have the potential to earn “instant royalties” – to the tune of “10-100X more than you can on Spotify or Apple Music” – via on-platform streams out of the gate. Also touted by the business is its value as a promotional tool and the revenue possibilities behind its NFT marketplace.

On the opposite side of that arrangement, Tune.fm says users “get paid to play” promoted tracks, which are available “as lossless uncompressed masters.”

Especially because the per-stream royalty rate at leading platforms appears unlikely to improve anytime soon – among other things, growth is strongest in emerging markets with lower subscription and ad costs – it’ll be worth following the moves of Tune.fm.

Furthermore, competing services’ price increases could render Tune.fm more appealing yet, particularly given the apparent opportunity for superfan-geared offerings to become the norm. Universal Music acts are live on Hybe’s Weverse superfan app, Warner Music is preparing to roll out its own platform for diehard supporters, and Spotify has confirmed that a more expensive “Deluxe” tier is forthcoming.

When it comes to the size of each month’s single-largest music industry funding round, 2023 topped 2024 in all but one comparison from January through August. Photo Credit: Digital Music News

How does August of 2024’s music industry funding stack up against that associated with the same month in 2023? Drawing from DMN Pro’s one-stop raise database, we analyzed the numbers to find out.

And at the top level, our answer points to a year-over-year decrease of 14.5%, from $100.02 million to $85.48 million. However, as has also been the case with our prior industry funding analyses, the hard stats don’t necessarily tell the whole story.

First, as mentioned, August of 2024’s average raise size, $12.21 million, outsized August of 2023’s just over $10 million. The latter period brought relatively small raises for companies including AI-powered music marketer Symphony (a $1 million pre-seed round) and sync-metadata startup Ringo (roughly $383,000 in pre-seed capital).

Next, the August of 2023 sum includes the $65 million secured by ticketing platform DICE; without the sizable raise, the stretch’s music industry funding would have totaled $35.02 million at a comparatively modest average of $3.89 million.

Running with the important potential for huge rounds to skew overall results, in keeping with clear-cut YoY music industry funding declines across other months in 2024, all but one of the single-largest monthly raises from January-August of 2023 topped those of January-August of 2024.

Admittedly, the 2023 months delivered an array of industry-adjacent raises (including but not limited to Amazon’s $1.25 billion Anthropic injection in September).

Even when disregarding these rounds in favor of those pertaining strictly to the industry, however, 2023 seemingly remains the funding frontrunner.

Keeping the focus on September – and similar trends are in place for months that can be compared in their entirety – India’s Kuku FM, which counts Google as a backer, raised a substantial $25 million the same month.

Nevertheless, we aren’t without positive takeaways on the 2024 funding side – as demonstrated by the relatively steady stream of raises that have come to fruition on the year.

Moreover, it should be kept front of mind that DMN Pro previously tracked a material funding increase in 2023 from the prior year – meaning that the 2024 numbers have a tough act to follow.

Looking ahead to the final third of 2024, it’ll be worth keeping an eye out not only for considerable raises attributable to the core industry, but also for those tied to the likes of OpenAI. Apple is reportedly in talks to back the ChatGPT developer.

Similarly, Daniel Ek-backed AI investment fund Air Street Capital has quietly participated in several interesting raises, some of which, like “Hollywood-grade visual AI” startup Odyssey, could make a splash in the entertainment sphere.

Photo Credit: Adi Goldstein

Miris has announced a $26 million seed funding round led by IAG Capital Partners to bring spatial audio computing into the streaming era. Here’s the latest.

Miris’ patented technology enables full, real-time streaming of dynamic, high fidelity spatial content without downloads. It solves a massive problem for today’s spatial computing creators, distributors, and consumers.

“The biggest tech and entertainment companies in the world are spending billions to grow the spatial computing market, Marlin Prager, Miris CEO & Co-Founder tells Digital Music News. “Miris delivers the only compute solution to unblock spatial content’s delivery bottleneck and allow for consumer-facing spatial streaming—without sacrificing quality or experience.”

Miris has developed and patented key streaming technologies, leading to the first content delivery network (CDN) enabling spatial content. With Miris, consumers will enjoy dynamic streaming of spatial content anywhere, anytime, without downloads or storage as a factor. It allows consumption of spatial audio content to mirror the ease we have of consuming music, movies, and TV content today.

“The success of Netflix, TikTok, Spotify, and YouTube have shown that streaming is the preferred way to consume content,” says Joel Whitley, partner at IAG Capital Partners. “We believe that spatial computing will not see widespread adoption unless and until high fidelity, interactive spatial content can be delivered to consumers for easy consumption through streaming.”

“Miris and its team have solved this key problem with an elegant solution delivering spatial content at scale,” Whitley continues. “This will enable the ‘pull-through’ for both spatial content and devices the market has been waiting for. Miris is the key to unlock spatial computing.”

Miris says it is led by a visionary management and technical team with decades of combined experience across entertainment & technology. The executive team has contributed to dozens of Hollywood films, video games, and large enterprise technology companies. From entertainment to healthcare to myriad business applications, Miris is working with spatial computing developers to stream a new generation of high-fidelity spatial content globally.

Photo Credit: FanCircles

FanCircles, a self-described “pioneering SaaS superfan platform,” has announced a $2 million raise and set its sights on adding new features.

The UK-based superfan business just recently announced that multimillion-dollar round, the result of capital put up by “several angel investors.”

Established nearly a decade back by Affiliate Window founder and industry vet Kevin Brown, FanCircles enables artists to stream performances as well as studio releases, communicate with fans (including via push notifications), interact with UGC, offer early access tickets, and sell merch in-app, to name some features.

On the ticket and merch fronts, FanCircles according to its website supports Ticketmaster and Shopify integration. (Artist users can seemingly opt to sell merch directly via their app/site as well.) Additionally, the platform allows clients to choose from free and subscription options.

Running with those points, contrasting superfan competitors like Hybe’s Weverse and presumably Warner Music’s forthcoming app for diehard supporters, FanCircles doesn’t operate a centralized service. Rather, the company says it affords artists the “opportunity to have their own fully branded platforms.”

To date, a variety of professionals, from veteran acts like Marillion and Robbie Williams to newer talent such as Olivia Lane and The Piano Guys, have rolled out standalone superfan platforms via FanCircles, the latter’s website shows.

And per the mentioned Kevin Brown, who doubles as CEO, the model sets FanCircles apart from well-known competitors.

“Major companies like Apple Connect and Facebook for Artists have faced difficulties with multi-artist models,” communicated the Access founder Brown. “This suggests that individual, artist-branded platforms are more effective in resonating with fans and supporting artists’ careers.

“This investment is a testament to the incredible demand for more authentic and direct artist-fan relationships,” he proceeded. “FanCircles is more than just a platform—it’s firmly putting artists front and center with its unique model of one app per artist.”

Looking to the future, FanCircles intends to use the newly raised capital to continue developing its core product, with an eye on optimized features including bolstered data analytics, e-commerce tools, and content delivery. Also on the horizon are buildout efforts targeting Europe, Asia, and North America alike.

Bigger picture, against the backdrop of possibly slowing streaming growth, superfan offerings are drawing more attention – and funding – than ever. Besides Warner Music’s previously noted superfan app, which is expected to release later in 2024, Universal Music is leaning into related initiatives with Hybe’s Weverse as well as Spotify.

Closing on the funding side, the past year or so has now delivered a number of superfan-platform raises, all compiled in DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker. The likes of Fave, We Are Giant, Renaissance, Tune.fm, and Trax have pulled down a cumulative total of approximately $35 million in investor capital.

Photo Credit: Turntable Labs Inc. / Hangout

Turntable Labs and Hangout secure an $8.2 million investment to launch a new social music platform.

Turntable Labs Inc., the company behind the new social music platform Hangout, today announced a seed round totaling $8.2 million ahead of its public launch. Hangout, which allows music fans, coworkers, and other communities to gather, DJ together, and interact in a playful virtual setting, is slated to go live later this year.

Led by Founders Fund, Elizabeth Street Ventures, 468 Capital, and ex-Facebook-led f7 Ventures, the round also includes contributions from angel investor Michael Guimarin, CEO of WordOut. Created by Joseph Perla, one of the founders behind the music service Turntable.fm, Hangout is the manifestation of the original concent that the founder and CEO envisioned for the social listening platform over a decade ago.

“We’ve created Hangout with a positive-sum approach in mind,” notes Perla. “People need joyful, meaningful social experiences online: music can facilitate that. And music needs more and more compelling ways to reach people and bring them together. Hangout accomplishes both, as one of the first truly participatory places online for music enjoyment and real-time social interaction.”

Inspired by the social and emotional impact of listening to music with others, Hangout’s game-like features address the missing layer of excitement and connection Perla feels most virtual social experiences lack. Virtual DJ booths provide users the opportunity to spin their selected tracks exclusively for themselves and their friends, in addition to public themed rooms based on their tastes and interests. Custom avatars can bop on the dancefloor, upvoting their favorite tunes, while chat options keep the party lively by encouraging connections new and old.

The latest iteration will incorporate new features for launch, including voice chat and mobile apps for iOS and Android, improve on the basic premise of social listening and making it easy for music lovers, artists, entertainers, and influencers to play music and hang out together with friends, creators, colleagues, and fellow fans.

“Hangout is pioneering a new era in music streaming services by integrating social media at its core. Throughout history, music has been social, participatory, and an integral part of community identity,” said Will McClelland, Co-Founder and General Partner at Elizabeth Street Ventures. “We are thrilled to partner with Hangout as a platform that enhances music discovery, promotes active listening, and brings pure enjoyment to both music lovers and artists in ways previously unimaginable before the internet, and excited to begin a new chapter for social music streaming globally.”

“We’re thrilled to support Hangout as it leads the way in this next evolution of social music, paving the path for a new era of digital community,” said Florian Leibert of 468 Capital. “In an era where digital connections are increasingly central to our lives, Hangout is at the forefront of revolutionizing how we experience music online. By combining music with social interaction, it offers a new way to build shared experiences and strengthen community bonds online.”

In addition to enabling Hangout’s official public launch slated for later this year, the funds will enable the company to further expand its engineering infrastructure team in preparation to support millions of active users at scale across the platform’s listening rooms and special events. Hangout is engaged with partners in the music industry in order to be fully legal and licensed for the upcoming launch. Fans can sign up now to get onto the waitlist for its invite-only beta, with full public launch coming later in 2024.

Apple is reportedly preparing an OpenAI investment as part of a multibillion-dollar raise. Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa

Who says Google and Amazon get to have all the AI-investment fun? In another twist, Apple is reportedly poised to back ChatGPT developer OpenAI.

That possible investment, which would be part of a new raise valuing the AI business at over $100 billion, came to light in a Wall Street Journal report. At the time of this writing, the Apple Music developer didn’t appear to have addressed the matter publicly.

However, per the mentioned report, the “unusual” startup investment would see Apple (and potentially Nvidia as well) join existing multibillion-dollar backer Microsoft aboard the OpenAI train.

Against the backdrop of an accelerating battle for AI supremacy, reports previously suggested that Apple had even considered an artificial intelligence alliance with rival Meta.

But with the iPhone developer having tapped OpenAI in June as its first “Apple Intelligence” partner, things are seemingly trending in a different direction. Per the Journal, it’s unclear how much Apple may contribute to the Thrive Capital-led OpenAI round, but the raise is expected to total “several billion dollars.”

And in the bigger picture, the move would officially add Apple to a growing list of high-profile companies (and music streaming service operators) with stakes in artificial intelligence giants.

Perhaps most conspicuously, this overlap between leaders in on-demand streaming – which is, of course, an integral component of the contemporary music landscape – and AI mainstays refers to Amazon’s approximately $4 billion interest in Anthropic.

Facing a particularly important copyright infringement lawsuit from music publishers, the latter entity remains adamant that training its models on protected compositions sans authorization constitutes fair use.

Meanwhile, Microsoft and OpenAI are grappling with multiple training-related actions from a long list of professionals and businesses. And Daniel Ek-backed Air Street Capital, which specifically strives to support “AI-first companies,” has quietly provided funding to startups including “Hollywood-grade visual AI” platform Odyssey.

That’s not even accounting for the varied list of backers behind Suno and Udio (which are also the target of industry infringement claims, this time from the major labels) – not to mention the far-reaching AI activities of the YouTube Music owner Google/Alphabet, Facebook parent Meta, and TikTok developer ByteDance.

(Air Street Capital was an early investor in AI music startup Jukedeck, which ByteDance scooped up in 2019.)

With Apple’s possibly imminent OpenAI stake, the curious situation will feature more ties than ever between key streaming platform operators on the one hand and the very AI companies that are allegedly compromising the building blocks of creativity on the other.

Needless to say, it’ll be worth closely monitoring the trend as well as the byproducts thereof moving forward, especially because the challenges posed by generative AI for rightsholders and creatives appear exceedingly unlikely to abate anytime soon.

Photo Credit: Nainoa Shizuru

UK-based Seat Unique successfully raises $19.1 million as part of an extended Series A round led by Nickleby Capital.

Seat Unique, a London-based “premium experience” platform, has successfully raised £14.5 million ($19.1 million) as part an extended Series A funding round led by Nickleby Capital. With VIP tickets and hospitality packages for sports, music, theatrical, and cultural events, Seat Unique is carving out a niche for itself in a sector primarily dominated by a handful of juggernauts like Ticketmaster.

The extended funding round builds on the company’s initial raise of $9 million last summer, also led by Nickleby Capital, with the participation of prior investors like LADBible Group board member and former Sky Bet CEO Richard Flint, and TFO Group founder and serial investor Simon Murphy.

“The experience economy is rapidly becoming the backbone of the music industry, as fans increasingly seek out not just live performances, but unforgettable, one-of-a-kind experiences,” adds Richard Flint.

Seat Unique has also attracted investment from several top athletes, including UK footballer and coach John Terry, rugby players Matt Dawson and Sam Warburton, cricketers Ben Stokes and Stuart Broad, and Olympic champion runner Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill.

With a network of partnerships with over 60 UK venues, clubs, and promoters, including Yorkshire Cricket, Jacksonville Jaguars UK, and Burnley FC, Seat Unique currently offers hospitality packages and premium seats for several upcoming events. These include the England v. Finland soccer match at London’s Wembley Stadium in September, and WWE Live events at venues throughout Newcastle and Manchester in October.

In the music sector, Seat Unique is offering VIP tickets and hospitality packages for acts like Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, NCT Dream, Dua Lipa, Lauryn Hill, and the newly-reunited Oasis. Founded by CEO Robin Sherry, the platform runs on “proprietary dynamic pricing software,” which indicates that prices for events are adjusted in real-time based on demand. The software enables “rights holders to optimize attendance, while fans benefit from a transparent and trustworthy purchasing experience of authentic, guaranteed inventory,” says Seat Unique.

The company has also added a board of advisors including Alastair Lukies CBE, Dame Alison Rose, Sir Michael Lockett, Tim Griffin, and Damien O’Donohoe, who join existing board members Richard Flint and Saav Shah of Nickleby Capital.

“The addition of such distinguished figures to our group of board advisors is a testament to the impact we are making in the industry,” said Robin Sherry. “This funding will allow us to continue enhancing our offering, ensuring that fans have unparalleled access to the best live experiences.”

Seat Unique’s announcement comes on the heels of ticket marketplace TickPick’s news of a $250 million investment from Brighton Park Capital. Last year, ticketing platform DICE announced a $65 million funding round that followed a $122 million funding round back in 2021. DICE is reportedly exploring a sale that values it in the hundreds of millions.

Audio Chateau Records has announced multiple executive appointments as well as a $4.5 million raise. Photo Credit: Markus Winkler

Audio Up Media’s Audio Chateau Records (ACR) has announced a $4.5 million raise and confirmed multiple executive appointments.

Jared Gutstadt-founded and Reservoir Media-backed Audio Up reached out with word of the multimillion-dollar raise, which follows the January of 2024 launch of the self-described “innovative new label” Audio Chateau Records. As its name suggests, this label operates from Audio Up’s multi-acre Audio Chateau “satellite” creative facilities.

Located in Nashville and Los Angeles, said facilities boast “a full stack of production and event capabilities,” according to the appropriate website. Meanwhile, the label’s roster includes acts such as Grupo Linea, Uncle Drank, the Compton Cowboys’ Randy Savvy, and Maejor Audio Sunshine (featuring the aforementioned Gutstadt).

Running with the details, ACR earlier in August celebrated its “first two drops,” and the previously noted $4.5 million in funding was put up by Exceleration Music managing partner Glen Barros, Partners in Kind founder (and Hormel Foods heiress) Gillian Hormel, and Music Direct audio consultant Jonathan Schulman*.

*Update, August 20th: Whoops: looks like we got the wrong Jonathan Schulman — the Music Direct audio consultant told DMN he’s not involved in this project.

Furthermore, Barros and Schulman have signed on as board members for Audio Chateau Records, which has also revealed multiple executive appointments. Coming aboard as A&R consultant is Nashville-based CAA and Sounds Good vet Grayson Flatness, who’s joining head of legal and business affairs Kate London.

Since May of 2022, the former Interscope and Global Music Rights higher-up London has held the same role at Audio Up proper, and she’s expected to continue handling the duties alongside those associated with ACR.

Keeping the focus on the Nashville music scene for a moment, Audio Chateau Records’ funding announcement and executive appointments have arrived on the heels of a partnership kickoff involving Timbaland’s Mosley Music and Universal Music Nashville. Under that tie-up, the companies say they’re working towards “breaking barriers in country music.”

And when it comes to wider funding developments in July and to this point in August, Audio Chateau Records’ $4.5 million tranche has entered the media spotlight roughly two weeks after content-attribution startup ProRata.ai revealed it’d pulled down $25 million. On top of the sizable Series A, the business added Universal Music, zeroing in more than ever on AI media and the platforms through which it’s made, as a partner.

July, for its part, delivered raises for companies including Posh (a $22 million Series A), Bridge.audio ($3.3 million), and Submix (a $1 million pre-seed round) – with each compiled in DMN Pro’s one-stop Music Industry Funding Tracker.

Photo Credit: Luke Harold

Amid intensifying industry legal battles with Suno, Udio, Anthropic, and other generative AI players, Universal Music Group has inked an agreement with content-attribution startup ProRata.ai.

Founded by Idealab Studio’s Bill Gross, who’s set to serve as CEO, ProRata.ai formally launched today. According to Axios, the software developer, which says it enables AI platforms to “fractionally attribute and compensate content owners,” has scored a $25 million Series A.

Behind that sizable backing, Pasadena-based ProRata itself confirmed support from Mayfield Fund, Revolution Ventures (a Sound Credit investor), Prime Movers Lab, and the mentioned Idealab Studio.

Also in place for ProRata are pacts not only with Universal Music, but the Financial Times, the Atlantic, Fortune, and more, according to the release that was forwarded to DMN.

As summarized by the debuting business, which says it has multiple patents pending, the technology at hand “analyzes AI output, measures the value of contributing content and calculates proportional compensation” for rightsholders.

Furthermore, ProRata by its own description “uses a proprietary algorithmic approach to score and determine attribution,” with compensation then doled out to rightsholders on a per-use basis.

Bearing in mind the aforesaid tie-ups with media outlets, the focus appears to be on text-based chatbot outputs for the time being; ProRata has teed up “a consumer AI answer engine,” designed to showcase its attribution capabilities, for release this fall.

Universal Music’s own focus is, of course, on the music side. And in a statement, CEO Lucian Grainge indicated that his company will “help shape” ProRata’s efforts in the industry.

“We are encouraged to see new entrepreneurial innovation set into motion in the Generative AI space guided by objectives that align with our own vision of how this revolutionary technology can be used ethically and positively while rewarding human creativity,” communicated Grainge.

“Having reached a strategic agreement to help shape their efforts in the music category, we look forward to exploring all the potential ways UMG can work with ProRata to further advance our common goals and values,” concluded the 64-year-old.

Time will reveal exactly which collaborations the partnership drives – an important point in light of the initially highlighted infringement battles with AI platforms and the similar disputes that are undoubtedly forthcoming.

Closer to the present, however, ProRata says it’s “in advanced discussions with global news publishers, media and entertainment companies, and more than 100 noted authors.” In light of the many authors who are spearheading separate litigation against AI platforms over alleged copyright infringement, those talks could prove significant.

Photo Credit: Bill Ackman by Adam Jeffery for CNBC

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square USA downscales its IPO valuation to ‘only’ $2 billion, down from an initial $25 billion expectation.

Bill Ackman, Pershing Square Capital Management CEO and billionaire hedge fund manager, is looking to raise $2 billion in the first public phase of Pershing Square USA — a significantly lower IPO valuation than the initial $25 billion clocked by Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal.

The initial public offering consists of 40 million shares priced at $50, with its underwriters given the option of purchasing an additional six million shares. Underwriters would include banks like Citigroup, Bank of America, and Jefferies.

The IPO will be in the form of a closed-end fund, with the expectation that it will hold many of the same positions as Ackman’s other ventures. The company also has a closed-end fund in Europe, which trades at a discount to its net asset value.

The move was expected to happen early this week, but has been delayed as of Friday, according to the New York Stock Exchange. Shares are expected to begin trading next Tuesday, August 6.

After several meetings and numerous investor concerns, Ackman reduced his expectation to between $2.5 billion and $4 billion, according to a letter to strategic partners. Pershing Square disclosed this letter in a July 25 filing and then officially disclaimed Ackman’s statements.

Pershing Square Holdings is a major shareholder in Universal Music Group; notably, the two entities’ share price traded alongside one another on the Euronext in Amsterdam. That said, Ackman is known for his ruthless and bullish investment tactics — which may not vibe with the music industry in an unfavorable climate to music acquisitions. Even with a significantly lower valuation, $2 billion is an optimistic ask in the statistically negative trading history of closed-end funds.

Ackman is best known for a disastrous $1 billion gamble against Herbalife, but these days he’s shied away from corporate activism. He can be seen most frequently posting his personal political takes at high volume on the former Twitter, where he has over 1.2 million followers.

Photo Credit: Sony Music

Apollo has announced it has provided a $700 million ‘capital solution’ to Sony Music Group for investments in the music industry. Could this be related to the rumored Queen catalog purchase?

Two weeks ago several sources spoke to Variety about a potential Queen music catalog acquisition by Sony Music in a £1 billion ($1.27B) deal. As part of that deal, the only revenue not covered is for live performances, which founding members Brian May and Roger Taylor will retain while touring with Adam Lambert. That report suggested another party was interested in bidding for the catalog, but stopped short of a billion-dollar offer—leaving Sony Music as the interested party for global publishing rights, name and likeness rights, and recorded music rights.

Apollo partner Jamshid Ehsani said in a statement: “We are pleased to provide a bespoke capital solution to an affiliate of one of the world’s leading companies. This investment allows our clients to invest in high grade securities while helping Sony to execute its business plans.”

The company is a global alternative asset manager with several ties to the music industry. It is the financial backer behind HarborView equity Partners, a music IP investment firm that launched in 2021. Apollo also recently acquired CKx. Inc, owner of 19 Entertainment—a producer of entertainment properties like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance.

In 2022, Apollo also structured a massive asset-backed security transaction for Concord, which was a $1.8 billion bond offering based on Concord’s catalog of roughly one million music copyrights. Concord recently pulled out of the Hipgnosis Songs Fund bidding war, leaving Blackstone the winner in that takeover. Apollo committed both debt and minority equity to establishing the deal before, however.

As of March 31, 2024 Apollo has approximately $671 billion of assets under management. Apollo says it provides its clients with a focus on three investing strategies—yield, hybrid, and equity.

Photo Credit: David Vincent

As the $1.6 billion acquisition by Blackstone finalizes, the Hipgnosis Songs Fund will delist from the London Stock Exchange on July 30. Here’s the latest.

A bidding war over Hipgnosis Songs Fund earlier this year saw Blackstone emerge victorious, after Concord bowed out. Hipgnosis shareholders voted in favor of the $1.6 billion acquisition bid for the company in a “court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement” according to the documents.

“Applications have been made to the London Stock Exchange for the suspension, and subsequent cancellation, of the admission to trading of Hipgnosis Shares on the main market and to the Financial Conduct Authority for the cancellation of the listing of the Hipgnosis Shares on the Official List,” the scheme of arrangement reads. “The suspension of Hipgnosis shares from the Official List and of dealings in Hipgnosis shares on the Main market are expected to take effect from 7:30 am on July 29, 2024.”

“Once suspended, it is not expected that trading in Hipgnosis shares will recommence and therefore the last day of dealings in, and for the registration of transfers of, Hipgnosis shares on the London Stock Exchange, and disablement of Hipgnosis shares in CREST, will be July 26, 2024.”

With this acquisition, Blackstone will own both Hipgnosis Songs Fund and Hipgnosis Songs Capital. Hipgnosis Songs capital is the private owner of assets associated with songwriters including Leonard Cohen, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Nelly Furtado, Kenny Chesney, and more. Both Hipgnosis Songs Fund and Hipgnosis Songs Assets continue to work closely with Hipgnosis Songs Management—of which Blackstone is also the majority owner.

Blackstone has more than $1 trillion in assets under management across many different sectors focused on private equity, real estate, growth equity, public debt and equity, and several others. The Hipgnosis Songs Fund owns rights to songs by Neil Young, Journey, Lindsey Buckingham, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shakira, Blondie, and many other artists.

Photo Credit: Posh co-founders Avante Price & Eli Taylor-Lemire

Small events platform startup Posh raises $22 million in a Series A funding round led by Goodwater Capital.

Event startup Posh is scaling up to focus on intimate gatherings of up to a few hundred people, with an aim to become the TikTok of small events. The company says it has raised $22 million in a Series A funding round led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from FirstMark Capital, Companyon Ventures, and Epic Ventures. The company has raised a total of $31 million in capital from investors, including the aforementioned as well as Day One Ventures and Pareto Holdings.

The startup plans to use the funds to expand its team from 26 to 40 in product and go-to-market areas, in addition to updating its app with better suggestions for relevant events. The company has 2 million registered users and $95 million in lifetime experiences booked through its platform.

“Consumers can also use Posh to discover the best events, experience connection and belonging, and eventually grow their own social communities on the platform,” says Hatim Khety, a partner at Goodwater Capital, in a statement explaining that the firm decided to invest in the company over its belief that Posh will be the “next big social platform” to bring people together in person.

Posh initially launched in 2020, with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering for events organizers to host events on Posh’s website. Now, it plans to focus on its own app, which opened to consumers last October, and works similarly to TikTok for events; users scroll vertically to find events that interest them. The app is available on both iOS and Android.

In January, the marketplace app orders counted for 6% of ticket orders, which jumped to 12% in June, according to co-founders Avante Price and Eli Taylor-Lemire. Posh aims to get 25% market share of all tickets sold directly from its app by year’s end.

At first, the app only showed events near you and trending events. This week, the company has launched a feature to allow users to import their contact books to see which of their friends are already on the platform. The company has plans to introduce a For You feed in the next few months, relying on signals like users’ direct or second connections, as well as the type of events a person has already attended.

“Posh is a platform where who’s going matters most,” says Price. “If you are going to a 500-person event where you know five to ten people, you want to hang out with them but also want to spend time with people that are similar.”

The app hosts around 5,000 events per month, the co-founders tell TechCrunch. Many are focused on nightlife or social activities, but the company wants to branch out into areas like fitness, food, and art.

Posh has also been trying to build a community for event organizers by hosting events specifically for them, providing tutorials about the app and other parts of hosting an event, such as finding a venue or booking a photographer. The company wants to help creators such as podcasters to engage with their top audience with in-person events, and help brands engage with community members with recurring small-scale events.

Posh charges no fee to event organizers, but takes a 10% plus $0.99 fee from people who book tickets. The startup has had profitable months, but is currently not profitable overall, and is focusing on growth. The platform currently sees roughly 350,000 bookings for 300,000 people each month, making a lot of people one-time users. As personalization features make their way into Posh, the company expects to see one-time users become repeat users.

Photo Credit: Spotify

Spotify revealed its Q2 2024 financials yesterday, revealing $4.13 billion in revenue, which is an increase of 20% year-over-year. The stock has risen to five-year highs on the news as investors gain confidence that Spotify can remain profitable.

Spotify says it has around 626 million monthly active users (up 15% YoY), with paid subscribers spiking 12% YoY to hit 246 million. The rest of Spotify’s MAUs are ad-supported listeners, which have also increased 15% compared to the previous year. Around 33% of its MAUs reside outside of North America, Latin America, and Europe in its broader ‘rest of the world’ category.

North America (27%) and Europe (38%) continue to make up the lion’s share of Spotify subscribers, though its world category grew 13% during Q2 2024. Spotify missed its Q2 MAUs guidance, but investors don’t seem too concerned as the stock rose 12% yesterday and continues to make gains today.

Photo Credit: Google

The last time Spotify’s stock reached these heights was in 2021, during its meteoric growth phase due to its podcast expansion strategy and everyone at home tuning in to music and podcasts while working.

“It’s an exciting time at Spotify,” CEO Daniel Ek told investors. “We keep on innovating and showing that we aren’t just a great product, but increasingly also a great business. We are doing so on a timeline that has exceeded even our own expectations. This all bodes very well for our future.” During that investor call, Ek confirmed that a higher-priced Spotify tier is on the way that will support lossless audio.

Ek says he expects the ‘deluxe version’ of its current premium tier would cost around $5 more—placing it around $18 per month. Ek did not provide a launch window for this higher tier, stating it is still in early development stages. Remember Spotify announced its HiFi tier back in 2021 but still has not released a competitor for Apple’s support of spatial audio.

Music collaboration startup Submix has unveiled a $1 million pre-seed round. Photo Credit: Submix

Audio-focused collaboration startup Submix has announced its official launch as well as the close of a $1 million pre-seed round.

Berlin- and San Francisco-based Submix reached out with word of both developments today, after workspace platform Bridge.audio scored a $3.3 million raise earlier in July. Keeping the focus on Submix, however, the subscription service says it’s “compatible with all DAWs” and connects “artists, producers, writers, and engineers on high-quality video calls with dedicated voice, audio, and MIDI channels.”

Co-founded and helmed by former Google and Airbnb marketing exec Paul Jeszenszky, Submix is further said to offer a “browser mode” to facilitate collaborations with those who don’t have accounts. And the platform’s “Submix Sketch” is described as an online and offline “virtual patchbay that links and controls all your software and hardware.”

Returning to the initially mentioned raise, Submix drew investments from “a diverse group of” companies and professionals, with the latter including execs and Grammy-winning producers, per the startup.

Also featured on that list of backers are Europe’s Angel Invest Ventures (the website of which indicates that the entity’s “initial check size is €100k”), Berlin’s SCNE Ventures, Berlin- and London-headquartered Tiny Supercomputer Investment Company, and Kyiv’s Vesna Capital.

While it’s unclear exactly how Submix intends to utilize the capital, continued expansions are presumably in the cards. As things stand, the platform, which charges $44.99 for its standard plan when billed on a month-to-month basis, is available worldwide but “exclusively for Mac users.”

Addressing the funding milestone, Jeszenszky, who founded the company alongside Beatport vet Chris Galvin (CXO) and former Tazman-Audio higher-up Doug Barr (CTO), underscored Submix’s ambitious long-term goal of “empowering human creativity.”

“Submix is committed to further empowering human creativity by improving the audio production process,” relayed Jeszenszky. “We believe by creating a more connected and collaborative workflow, we can unearth more opportunities for anyone currently or looking to work in professional audio.”

And in a LinkedIn post touting the news, Jeszenszky noted that the business had “opened a small additional investment allocation” designed to attract audio professionals and others in the industry “who can help share their expertise.”

“Please reach out if you are interested or know someone who might be,” the Submix CEO proceeded. “We were VERY lucky and ended up being oversubscribed on the round but we didn’t bring in as many audio/music-specific angel investors as we wanted.”

This past November, collaboration platform Baton disclosed a $4.2 million raise; according to its website, the Gabe Warshaw-founded service is currently in beta.

An aerial shot of Paris, France, where Bridge.audio is headquartered. Photo Credit: Chris Hardy

Cloud-based music workspace Bridge.audio has announced a nearly $3.3 million raise and set its sights on optimizing sync discoverability with AI.

The Paris-headquartered startup’s founder and CEO, Clément Souchier, only recently disclosed the €3 million (currently $3.27 million) funding round via a LinkedIn post. As described by this message, the two-year-old business pulled down the capital from backers including Bpifrance, Liège-based investment fund LeanSquare, and “business angels.”

Now boasting more than 30,000 users, according to Souchier, Bridge.audio has developed a main offering encompassing music-centered “private workspaces to manage, share, and connect.” Beyond these “smart workspaces” as well as their activity-tracking and metadata-management features, the collaboration-focused service, operating in both English and French, has also created an AI-powered tagging and description technology, its website shows.

Running with the idea, last January saw Bridge.audio roll out an aptly named “Sync Hub” marketplace designed to connect audiovisual professionals with licensable music for their projects. Bearing in mind the AI-tagging emphasis, said marketplace supports “natural language searches,” per the longtime entrepreneur Souchier.

On the pricing front, Bridge.audio’s core collaboration service has a free tier and a paid option; the latter’s cost begins at $5 per month when billed annually and scales upward depending on the precise amount of sought storage.

Shifting to the bigger funding picture, industry and industry-adjacent raises, as compiled by DMN Pro’s comprehensive Music Industry Funding Tracker, have been comparatively few and far between in 2024.

That refers specifically to three industry raises for June of 2024 – down from 10 during the same month in 2023. May of 2024, for its part, likewise registered three publicly confirmed funding rounds, a material decrease from May of 2023’s 13 rounds.

Notwithstanding the apparent funding-quantity falloff, however, 2024 has delivered several particularly high-value raises, including but not limited to a $165 million strategic round for Create Music Group, a cool $1 billion for Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group, and $100 million for Gamma.

Now, on the momentum of two relatively modest raises (Bridge.audio’s $3.3 million and the $5 million that Created by Humans secured in late June), time will tell whether the final five or so months of 2024 usher in other smaller-scale showings of support.

As things stand, July of 2024 appears exceedingly unlikely to surpass or even approach the funding volume of the same month in 2023, which had already recorded 11 industry and sub-sector raises at this point. By comparison, Bridge.audio seems to be the first industry company to unveil fresh funding in the current month.

Selected major Hipgnosis Songs Fund shareholders as of late June and early July (Source: Hipgnosis Songs Fund disclosures)

Six years and many twists later, what’s going on with Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), the Merck Mercuriadis-founded company that owns 138 high-profile catalogs? The question is front of mind in industry circles now that Hipgnosis, having for some time made headlines for its operational difficulties, is poised to sell.

Report Table of Contents

I. Introduction: Where Hipgnosis Songs Fund Stands Directly Before a Possible Sale

II. A Recap of Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s Rollercoaster 2024: Key Developments from the Year’s Opening Half

Graph 1: Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s Whirlwind 2024 At a Glance 

III. Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s High-Stakes Sales Votes — All Eyes Are on Investors As They Weigh the Proposed Scheme

Graph 2: Hipgnosis Songs Fund Per-Share Stock Price, July 2019 — July 2024

Graph 3: Selected Major Hipgnosis Songs Fund Shareholders — Shares Held As of Late June and Early July 2024

IV. The End of Hipgnosis? The Positive (and Not-So-Positive) Reasons Why the Brand Is Far from Finished

Graph 4: Hipgnosis Songs Fund Catalog Size, March 2019 — July 2024

Graph 5: Blackstone-Powered Hipgnosis Song Management’s Music IP Acquisitions, 2022-2024

V. Hipgnosis in the Bigger Picture: The Songs Fund’s Lasting Impact on the Wider Catalog Space

VI. Appendix: Hipgnosis’ Organizational Structure At a Glance

Please do not redistribute this report without permission. Thank you!

Photo Credit: Created by Humans

Created by Humans aims to help creators license their works to AI models, receiving a $5 million injection to launch.

In a sea of genAI companies facing litigation from the creative sector over the training of AI models on creators’ works without proper authorization, Created by Humans wants to be the lifeboat.

Billing itself as “the AI rights licensing platform for creators,” Created by Humans is starting its battle with books — encouraging authors and publishers to sign up and claim their works to decide whether to opt in or out of licensing options with AI firms.

The startup has raised $5 million in funding, with plans to expand beyond books to become a platform “where creators of videos, images, music, and even medical data can sell licensing rights for AI training.”

The brainchild of Trip Adler, former CEO of document sharing service turned digital book and news subscription company Scribd, Created by Humans has received funding from “a bevy of prominent investors” led by Craft Ventures founder David Sacks, and Mike Maples, co-founder of Floodgate Fund. Other investors include LAUNCH Fund’s Jason Calacanis, Slow Ventures’ Sam Lessin and Garry Tan, and best-selling author Walter Isaacson. Isaacson also joined the company as a creative advisor and inaugural author whose work can be licensed by AI companies.

The exact details of Created by Humans’ licensing agreement are still evolving. Authors can submit their work for AI companies to purchase specific elements with predefined usage rights. “We’re trying to broker a three-way deal between authors, publishers, and the AI industry,” says Adler. “It’s complicated, but we’re making great progress.”

Currently, the company is proposing a philosophy called the Fourth Law — a set of guiding principles for the way AI companies can use and train models on human-created content. Inspired by sci-fi author Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics, Fourth Law states that humans should have the right to consent and control how AI uses their works, and should be appropriately compensated and credited for that work.

“We want [Fourth Law] to be the new standard for how deals work between AI companies and content owners,” said Adler. “Authors and publishers can contribute their content and manage all their content according to the Fourth Law.”

Using Walter Isaacson as an example, Adler explains how creators can choose the rights they want to license from their works. “He can pick training rights, reference rights; he can license the style of his voice, his characters, and pick which AI company he wants to license to,” Adler says. “Then Walter will get a dashboard that shows where his books are being used and how he’s making money.”

Created by Humans is looking to establish a framework for a host of licensing rights, including converting a book into a movie script, and translating it into other languages in real-time. Adler says he envisions “AI revenue” as the next major force in the book industry, eventually eclipsing ebooks and audiobooks.

(l to r) Create Music Group co-founders Alexandre Williams (COO), Jonathan Strauss (CEO), and Wayne Hampton (chief business development officer). Photo Credit: Rich Polk

Create Music Group has officially scored $165 million in capital from Flexpoint Ford and others as part of its “first major investment.”

The nearly decade-old music company, which operates as a label, publisher, distributor, IP investor, and more, formally disclosed the Flexpoint-led round today. According to the Label Engine and Flighthouse operator Create, Hitco founder Charles Goldstuck also participated.

As described by the funding recipient, the “significant minority investment” will lay the groundwork for continued expansion (and buyout) initiatives as well as service improvements for its global client base. Solely via the mentioned Label Engine, that includes in excess of 75,000 artists and 5,000 labels attributable to the overarching Create Music Group, which has north of 400 employees worldwide.

Elaborating on the points, Create CEO Jonathan Strauss in a statement touted the development as “a significant milestone” for his Hollywood-based business.

“Our partnership with Flexpoint marks a significant milestone for our company and their expertise will be instrumental as we continue to scale our operations and find new ways to serve our client’s evolving needs,” communicated Strauss.

“Flexpoint’s investment will also support our ambitious acquisition strategy which will allow us to expand our market presence and create the scale to continue to provide unparalleled services to our clients and partners,” concluded the exec, whose company last year bought Music for Pets.

Meanwhile, in comments of his own, Flexpoint managing director Mike Morris, who previously held the same role at Northleaf Capital Partners, expressed the belief that Create has “set a new standard for the industry.”

“We believe Jonathan and his team have set a new standard for the industry, challenging traditional music companies to rethink their strategies,” indicated Morris. “By acting as a media company that offers comprehensive support to artists, including distribution, marketing, financial solutions and audience engagement, Create Music Group has created a blueprint for the future of music.”

Looking to the bigger picture, Create’s $165 million raise has arrived amid a well-documented falloff in industry funding during 2024’s opening half. As charted in detail by DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker, the volume and the cumulative value of raises have slipped dramatically when compared to 2023.

(The falloff would be far more pronounced if not for the presence of a few sizable rounds like Create’s, Gamma’s $100 million raise, and the $1 billion pulled down by Iconic Artists Group, for instance.)

Notwithstanding this material slowdown, Australian music licensing startup Melodie last month obtained about $660,000 in bridge funding ahead of a planned strategic raise next year.

A breakdown of publicly announced catalog acquisitions between January-May 2023 and 2024. In the 2024 period, May encompasses the month’s first three weeks.

Amid an uncertain economic climate and cooling industry funding, how are catalog acquisitions faring in 2024? We crunched the numbers to see where the space is positioned and where it could be heading during the rest of the year.

This latest check-in on the song-rights arena is made possible by our Music IP Acquisition Tracker, a comprehensive, searchable database of catalog deals large and small. From the Hipgnosis Songs Fund bidding war to Pophouse Entertainment’s reportedly $300 million acquisition of the KISS catalog, much has changed since we last broke down the multibillion-dollar subsector.

Report Table of Contents

I. Introduction: A Recap of the Catalog Space’s Early 2024 Showing

II. Catalog Deals’ Volume Has Slowed in 2024 — Does the Decrease Paint a Complete Picture?

Graph: Music Industry IP Acquisitions, January-May 2023 and 2024

III. Confidence in Catalogs: With Capital Commitments Exceeding $3 Billion, Is a Wave of Purchases Forthcoming?

Graph: By the Numbers: 2024’s Catalog Capital Commitments

IV. The Bottom Line: Where Will the Catalog Space Go During the Rest of 2024?

Photo Credit: Melodie

Australian music licensing startup Melodie has raised $1 million AUS ($660,000 USD) in funding ahead of a strategic capital raise planned for 2025.

The company’s total funding sits at just under $3 million AUS ($2M USD) from investors including early Atlassian employee and Code Barrel founder Nick Menere. Peter Strain, co-owner of The Drop Festival is also counted among Melodie’s early investors.

Melodie was founded in November 2017, since then the music licensing service’s core numbers have grown exponentially. The service has seen a 96% – 229% year-over-year increase in revenue over each of the past three years. That includes snowballing broadcast royalty income and recurring revenue from creators, brands, broadcasters, production companies, and API users.

The company’s continued growth and success has been acknowledged by The CEO Magazine where Evan Buist, Melodie’s Founder and Managing Director, was recently awarded ‘Highly Commended Entrepreneur of the Year’ ahead of Melodie winning the prestigious ‘Product of the Year’ award in the Audio Production, Processing and Networking category at NAB Show in Las Vegas. The service also took home Acquisition International’s Global Excellence Award for ‘Music Platform on the Year’ in 2024.

Investors are paying attention as Melodie just announced a convertible note bridging round ahead of a larger strategic equity raise planned for 2025. With $1 million already committed, there is strong investor confidence in the company’s continued growth.

“As we mark our sixth year of operation, we are building closer relationships with our partners, and broadening our global presence,” adds Evan Buist. “Three of the world’s four largest royalty markets are France, the UK, and Germany. With more than 20 million minutes of our music now broadcast on FTA and VOD platforms in Australia alone, we are looking to replicate that success in key European markets—leveraging data to create long-term, powerful strategic alliances.”

Every time a piece of music is downloaded at Melodie, an artist get paid. Melodie continues to create income for countless independent musicians, in a way that places value on their creativity and acknowledges the arts as an income-generating industry.

S10 founder Brandon Silverstein and Avex USA head Naoki Osada. Photo Credit: Jeremy Jackson

Avex USA, the stateside label, publisher, and venture-fund division of the namesake Japanese entertainment conglomerate, has announced a strategic investment in Brandon Silverstein’s S10 Entertainment.

The Los Angeles-headquartered business just recently confirmed the investment in a formal release, after Katsumi Kuroiwa, CEO of the overarching Avex operation, first disclosed the play at an investor conference in Tokyo.

Itself consisting of label, publishing, investment, and management arms, S10 was founded in 2017 by the aforementioned Silverstein. In 2018, the entity revealed that it had joined “the Roc Nation family” via a “creative partnership,” and Avex USA emphasized this high-profile connection to the Jay-Z company when announcing the investment.

Besides that point and its existing tie-up with S10 Publishing, four-year-old Avex USA opted against identifying any of the stake’s specifics, including the ownership percentage and the hard monetary value at hand.

Nevertheless, execs did drive home the union’s perceived potential to help Avex’s Japanese acts crack the U.S. market and to aid American talent in establishing a presence in the Asian nation, which boasts today’s second-largest recorded music industry.

All told, Tokyo-based Avex is said to have north of 1,500 employees between 11 international offices, representing more than 450 total clients across music, film, TV, and fashion alike. And Avex USA, for its part, oversees labels including Blue Suede Records and has stakes in companies such as Universal Music-partnered sound-wellness app Endel.

“We’ve achieved a tremendous amount with Brandon in recent years,” weighed in Avex USA CEO Naoki Osada, “and over that time built a great trust between us. We share a lot in common with our respective companies’ DNA, and extending our partnership was a natural and organic step.

“We are very grateful that Brandon, Jay and Roc Nation have welcomed us into their family and are incredibly excited to create something truly unique and impactful through this partnership,” concluded Osada, who previously spent over a decade as an exec with Avex proper.

And in remarks of his own, Silverstein, whose company’s management clients include Bad Bunny collaborator Myke Towers, described leaning in with Avex as “a natural progression in deepening our ever-growing relationship.”

Towards 2023’s conclusion, Paris-headquartered Believe, soon to (once again) be a private company, dramatically expanded its presence in Japan with the debut of a Tokyo headquarters; that development set the stage for the February of 2024 rollout of a hip-hop imprint called Playcode. And Warner Music kicked off 2024 by unveiling an artist-focused strategic alliance with Red Light Management in Japan.

Photo Credit: Hipgnosis Songs Fund

Apollo-backed Concord says it will not be increasing its Hipgnosis bid higher than $1.25 per share, a statement that gives Blackstone the higher offer and a path towards acquisition.

Concord will not be upping its offer for Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), according a statement issued to Digital Music News late Wednesday (May 8th). In an emerging bidding war involving Blackstone, Concord had recently upped its offer to $1.25 per share, with Blackstone quickly beating the per-share price. Concord’s $1.25-per-share price, however, is’ final and will not be increased,’ according to the company and its operative acquisition entity, Concord Bidco.

“Further to the announcements made by Concord Bidco on 18 April 2024 and 24 April 2024 (the “Announcements”) setting out the terms of its all cash offer for the entire issued, and to be issued, share capital of Hipgnosis, Concord Bidco confirms that its offer of $1.25 per Hipgnosis Share is final and will not be increased,” the statement reads.

Late last month, after Concord put up an improved offer of $1.51 billion for Hipgnosis Songs Fund – and began purchasing shares from investors – Blackstone shot back with a $1.57 billion bid.

Blackstone, which is the majority owner of Hipgnosis Song Management, and HSF formally announced the higher bid on April 28th. Made via Blackstone’s newly formed “Lyra Bidco,” the proposal would pay the publicly traded songs fund’s investors $1.30 per share and was recommended by Hipgnosis Songs Fund to its shareholders.

Blackstone would also assume HSF’s sizable debt facility as part of their offer.

“The Board is pleased to unanimously recommend this US$1.6 billion Offer for Hipgnosis from Blackstone,” HSF chair Robert Naylor said in a statement late last month. “Since we started our strategic review, we have been clearly focused on looking at all the options to deliver shareholder value. We are delighted that, following competitive interests in acquiring Hipgnosis, our investors now have a chance to immediately realise their holding at an increased premium.”

Leading up to Concord’s latest announcement, multiple Hipgnosis shareholders have started to divest their shares.

That strongly suggested that the bidding war was coming to a close, though a purchase isn’t a clear next step. As part of a complex ownership arrangement, Hipgnosis Songs Management, or HSM, Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s investment advisor, appears resolutely ready to protect its position amidst the bidding war.

A key issue is a “call option” in the investment advisory agreement between HSM and HSF. This option would allow HSM to acquire HSF’s assets in specific scenarios, potentially hindering a sale to a third party.

As of very early Thursday, May 9th, HSF had not issued a statement on Concord’s decision to stay put.

More as this develops.

Photo Credit: Hipgnosis Songs Fund

Let the bidding war commence! After getting one-upped by Blackstone, Concord is now back with a slightly better all-cash bid of $1.51 billion.

Over the weekend, Blackstone bested Concord Chorus’ $1.4 billion all-cash offer for Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited with a juicier $1.5 billion offer. Now, Concord is quickly responding with a slightly-better, $1.51 billion offer.

The offer, emailed to Digital Music News moments ago, outlined a revised cash offer of $1.25 per share, a 7.8% increase from its original offer. The offer values Hipgnosis at approximately $1.5115 billion, which edges out Blackstone’s weekend offer.

In its offer summary, Concord noted that the revised offer represents a significant premium over Hipgnosis’s recent trading price and its Net Asset Value (NAV). Concord also relayed that the Hipgnosis Board of Directors has unanimously recommended the increased offer to Hipgnosis shareholders.

Specifically, ‘Concord Bidco’ noted that shareholders representing 31.27% of Hipgnosis’s issued shares have already agreed to support the offer. Other shareholders can vote on the deal here.

“We are pleased to announce this increased offer for Hipgnosis, which has again been unanimously recommended by its Board and has the support of shareholders representing 31.27 percent of Hipgnosis’ issued share capital,” relayed Bob Valentine, CEO of Concord.

“We continue to believe that this is the best outcome for Hipgnosis shareholders as it provides them with the opportunity to realize their investment in cash at a significant premium to the price where the shares were trading before our bid last week.”

“The Hipgnosis Directors believe that the Increased Concord Offer is in the best interests of Hipgnosis Shareholders as a whole, and accordingly unanimously recommend that Hipgnosis Shareholders vote in favor of the resolutions required to implement the Increased Concord Offer to be proposed at the Court Meeting and the General Meeting which are due to be held on or around 10 June 2024,” the statement continues.

Concord noted that it would finance the acquisition offer through a combination of debt (provided by Apollo Funds) and its own equity, with Apollo holding a minority position.

Scroll down through the various details of the offer, and you’ll find this: Concord also noted that it plans to continue its previous plans with Hipgnosis as an asset but may sell up to 30% of the assets within 18 to 24 months.

“The Increased Concord Offer does not change Concord Bidco’s intentions as regards Hipgnosis as set out in the Rule 2.7 Announcement, save that Concord Bidco now intends to sell up to 30 percent of Hipgnosis’ assets within 18 to 24 months following completion of the Acquisition,” the offer stated.

The offer shifts the attention back to Blackstone, though Digital Music News is also hearing rumblings of other potential bidders coming forward.  Blackstone already owns parts of Hipgnosis, so a successful bid for Hipgnosis Songs Fund would give them more control over the music rights industry.

Separately, all eyes are now glued to Hipgnosis Songs Management, which is stubbornly sticking to its contractual rights and signaled its willingness to fight. HSM, Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s investment advisor, appears resolutely ready to protect its position amidst the bidding war.

A key issue is a “call option” in the investment advisory agreement between HSM and HSF. This option would allow HSM to acquire HSF’s assets in specific scenarios, potentially hindering a sale to a third party.

HSM insists that the company cannot legally terminate the agreement without honoring HSM’s contractual rights. In a notice issued this week, HSM clearly stated that they are prepared to take legal action and even exercise the call option to protect their interests.

Separately, Blackstone, which owns a majority stake in HSM, emphasized that its offer for HSF is independent of any influence from founder Merck Mercuriadis.

Looking ahead, the ‘HSM factor’ could spark legal battles or drive up the price in an intensified bidding process.

Stay tuned.

Photo Credit: Pepi Stojanovski

Range Media Partners has announced that it has secured a minority investment in the company from a strategic investment group including Liberty Global, Wildcat Capital Management, and Playground Productions.

RMP says it will use the funds to spur growth initiatives and strategic acquisitions. Range recently created a music publishing division and opened Nashville offices in March 2024. In 2021, Range Media Partners inked a global distribution deal with Capitol Music Group (CMG) and Virgin Music & Artist Label Services for their Range Music labels.

As the first-of-its-kind diversified management firm operating in entertainment, sports, music, digital, and more, the growth capital will enable Range to fortify its marketplace position in the United States. Range will also seek to scale in existing and new international territories, while bolstering its unique value proposition across representation and production.

Range Media Partners launched in 2020 and has dramatically expanded to feature one of the most diversified talent rosters across multiple industries. Spanning TV & film, digital, music, sports, and brands—Range has built a dynamic ecosystem around its clients. It provides a full stack of shared services spanning all facets of content production and commerce-based initiatives.

“We founded Range with the express intention to build a multi-vertical, full-service offering, one that extends beyond the traditional business of film & TV representation in order to catapult client careers and ambitions through the broader entertainment & media landscape as well as through technology and diversified ventures,” states Peter Micelli, CEO of Range Media Partners. “We saw the dynamic changes happening, our clients were feeling them through the ripple effect, and we wanted to be more aggressive in how we could advantageously leverage those changes accordingly.”

“Liberty Global, one of the most widely respected industry leaders worldwide, along with Wildcat Capital Management and Playground Productions are ideal strategic partners for Range’s next stage of growth,” adds Jack Whigham, Managing Partner of Range Media Partners.

“We have been very deliberate during this process, wanting to find top-tier, blue-chip partners who have a unique perspective on our industry and are as committed as we are to an innovative long-term strategy to unlock global value for our clients. We are honored to move into this transformative phase with Liberty Global, along with the other first-rate financial sponsors, at our side to continue to meaningfully diversify our business through investment & acquisition.”

The investor group comprised of affiliates of Liberty Global and an investment fund advised by Wildcat Capital Management, as well as Rick Hess, was led by Forest Road Asset Management LLC and accompanied by an investment from Playground Productions.

The past week has been a dizzying one for Hipgnosis Songs Fund, which now finds itself in the earliest stages of a bidding war, a legal war, or both. Here’s a quick, five-minute catch-up on everything that’s happened over the past few days.

If you’re twenty emails behind and skimming through the Hipgnosis chaos, then this Cliffs Notes update is for you. Here’s the top-level skinny.

Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), a publicly traded entity with an ultra-valuable portfolio of hit music catalogs, has found itself amidst a whirlwind takeover battle. This battle was initiated last week by publishing and music IP heavyweight Concord, who offered $1.4 billion to acquire the fund. The offer, disclosed on April 17th, represented a significant opportunity for battered shareholders to recoup losses and was quickly accepted by the HSF board.

However, the situation quickly escalated when private equity giant Blackstone outbid Concord with a $1.5 billion all-cash offer, highlighting the immense value of the music rights HSF controls. The HSF board has shown clear support for Blackstone’s superior offer, pending formalization.

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If Concord (or another bidder) doesn’t try to beat Blackstone, this would typically mean a smooth path to acquisition. However, the biggest hurdle remains HSF’s complex investment advisory agreement with Hipgnosis Song Management (HSM).

What’s up with Hipgnosis Song Management (HSM)?

HSM, partially owned by music industry figure Merck Mercuriadis and majority owned by Blackstone, holds a controversial clause in its agreement with HSF. This “call option” gives HSM the right to step in and purchase HSF’s entire music catalog under certain circumstances, including a change in investment advisor. HSM has now made it clear they intend to “vigorously protect” this right, adding a serious legal dimension to the takeover battle.

As Yogi Berra observed, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” But here are some possible outcomes.

• • Swift Buyout: If HSM backs down, a formal bid from Blackstone could lead to a quick acquisition, satisfying shareholders and providing Blackstone with a lucrative asset.
  • HSM Counteroffer: HSM could exercise its call option, forcing an even higher price for HSF’s assets. This could benefit shareholders but also lead to a protracted negotiation or legal challenge.
  • Concord Counteroffer: Concord could easily up its ante, as could any other well-endowed prospective buyer. Blackstone potentially holds an advantage given its existing Hipgnosis holdings, though the highest bidder is also likely to receive shareholder approval.
  • Stalemate: A protracted legal clash involving HSM could result, potentially scaring off bidders and leaving HSF in operational and financial uncertainty.

And there’s your 5-minute wrap-up. Stay tuned for more developments ahead.

Got a tip? Send it confidentially to Digital Music News via Signal — our handle is digitalmusicnews.07.

Photo Credit: AudioStrip (Basil Woods)

The Innovate UK Fund has announced six winners to be awarded grant funding from the government totaling £1 million to jumpstart ‘AI in the music industry.’ That includes AI-focused upstart AudioStrip.

Competition assessors agreed that AudioStrip would benefit and strengthen the UK music industry by saying “this is well planned, resourced, and researched innovation that can impact the business, market, and wider industries in the field of AI and music separation.”

The aim of the Innovate UK Fund competition is to advance the development of artificial intelligence products and services within the global music supply chain, which benefits the UK music sector. Winners must collaborate with industry stakeholders to unlock the full potential of AI applications across the value chain, support and uplift the music industry, and drive long-term creative and commercial success.

AudioStrip will strengthen its partnership with the world-leading Centre for Digital Music (C4DM) at Queen Mary University of London. The collaboration will see AudioStrip develop new state-of-the-art AI in music source separation via machine learning. The company takes a finished music file and can cleanly separate it into vocals and instruments—similar to the technology used to extract John Lennon’s voice from a cassette recording.

Current commercial software only splits vocals, bass, and drums at good quality. Currently, there is no product that can simultaneously separate more instruments in a usable quality, which is what AudioStrip aims to achieve. The partnership with C4DM will fill this gap by developing advanced machine-learning algorithms that can automatically detect musical instruments for high-quality audio source separation.

“This technology is sweeping the music industry,” Basil Woods, Co-Founder & CEO of AudioStrip told Digital Music News. “AudioStrip will offer more advanced tools for precise separation of individual elements in audio files. By partnering with Queen Mary, we aim to elevate music source separation technology beyond industry benchmarks, making it an indispensable tool for DJs, independents, producers, and licensors.”

“Our goal is to automatically identify musical elements from any given song—including vocal, instrumental, drums, bass, piano, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and synthesizer—and extract them into independent tracks without losing quality.”

“Our Centre for Digital Music (C4DM) has grown into a world-leading multi-disciplinary research group, responsible for numerous spin-out companies and business partnerships with companies large and small,” adds Simon Dixon, Director of UKRI Centre for Doctorial Training in Artificial Intelligence and Music at Queen Mary University of London.

Photo Credit: Cloud 9 Music

Armada Music’s dance investment fund has acquired Amsterdam-based publisher Cloud 9 Music, significantly bolstering Armada’s headcount.

Armada Music’s dance investment fund, BEAT Music Fund, has announced the acquisition of Amsterdam-based music publisher Cloud 9 Music, effectively tripling Armada’s publishing division headcount. As part of the deal, the teams at Armada’s existing publishing company will merge with Cloud 9 Music to form Armada Music Publishing.

Cloud 9 Music’s copyright assets and songwriters will be serviced and administered by Armada Music Publishing, while employees from Cloud 9 will significantly bolster its headcount. Armada Music Publishing will include a full-service and experienced publishing back-office team operating under the parent company Armada Music Group.

Maykel Piron will oversee Armada Music Publishing and its entities, with a leadership team that includes CFO Margôt Hölscher, GM Michel Peek, and Head of Publishing Administration, Ronald Visser.

“This acquisition is significant to us and will boost our ability to empower today’s dance artists and expand their opportunities to monetize their work in the current landscape,” said Piron, CEO and co-founder of Armada Music Group. “Now more than ever, today’s artists need a trusted partner. Providing label, publishing services, and opportunities within catalog investment all under one roof directly fuels our ongoing mission to advocate for dance artists, contribute to their success, and uphold the value of creativity.”

Armada Music Group’s acquisition enables the new Armada Music Publishing to represent a roster of songwriters, producers, and emerging talent, including Armin van Buuren, Brennan Heart, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, D.O.D., Dubvision, Kevin Saunderson, Nervo, Reinier Zonneveld, Sander van Doorn, Vini Vici, W&W, Yulia Niko, Priska, KDYN, and many more.

BEAT Music Fund launched in April 2023 as an artist-friendly vehicle to “unlock value” from recordings and copyrights within the dance spectrum. Its success has fueled the acquisitions of Cloud 9, New York-based King Street Sounds, Dutch dance duo Chocolate Puma, and UK-based labels Sola Records and VIVa MUSiC. BEAT plans to increase its investment to at least $500 million in the next few years, with Armada Music and its publishing arm working in tandem to uphold the legacy of dance artists and protect their work’s value.

Photo Credit: Hipgnosis Songs Fund

Concord, operating as ‘Concord Chorus Limited,’ has proposed an all-cash takeover of Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited for roughly $1.4 billion. The respective company boards love the arrangement — though this is hardly a done deal.

Details of the offer were tipped to Digital Music News late Wednesday (April 17th), with terms that could spell a convenient out for Hipgnosis shareholders. Concord’s offer, which tops $1.4 billion, represents a 32.2 percent premium on the April 17th closing price of Hipgnosis Songs Fund and signifies a major move by Concord to enhance its music rights portfolio.

Digital Music News was first to report the news following a late-Wednesday disclosure by both sides. The parties officially disclosed the offer at 2 am ET with the news, and markets immediately reacted in early morning trading on the London Stock Exchange.

Concord, also referred to as ‘Bidco’ in the acquisition paperwork, hammered out an agreement that might just work. “The board of directors of each of Bidco and Hipgnosis are pleased to announce that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended cash offer pursuant to which Bidco will acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Hipgnosis (the “Acquisition”),” the lengthy email declared.

The Hipgnosis Songs Fund board has formally accepted Concord’s acquisition offer. An independent committee advised the board that this offer was ‘fair and reasonable.’

Beyond the per-share pricing, the deal would also involve the assumption of a sizable tranche of debt that would effectively push the acquisition price past $2 billion.

This acquisition certainly aligns with Concord’s goal of investing in enduringly popular music. But the deal is still subject to the approval of all stakeholders and even regulators. And there’s almost certainly going to be disagreement between Hipgnosis Songs Fund and its investment advisor, Hipgnosis Song Management, about the deal.

For starters, it’s likely that Hipgnosis Song Management believes that the offer price is too low. While the $1.4 billion offer sounds good to battered shareholders, it’s relatively cheap compared to the impressive IP Hipgnosis controls. But more to the point, HSM also has a contractually-determined ‘call option’ that gives it the ability to match a competitive offer, pay the company’s market cap, or pay an amount determined by an agreed-upon third-party appraiser — depending on which option fetches the highest price.

Those are the pre-determined stipulations, which may also invite a messy legal confrontation and scuttle Concord’s deal offer.

Concord is working with Apollo Global Management to help finance the acquisition.

“Concord and its management have followed the progression of Hipgnosis since IPO and believe that Hipgnosis’ assets complement Concord’s long-standing objective to acquire high quality and long-term music assets,” the company shared.

More as this develops.

Photo Credit: Hipgnosis (Cindy Rampersaud)

Hipgnosis Songs Fund has promoted Cindy Rampersaud to Senior Independent Director as of April 12. Rampersaud has served on the music royalty investor’s board as a non-executive director since August 2023.

The Hipgnosis Songs Fund remains in dispute with its investment adviser, alleging misconduct against Hipgnosis Songs Management Ltd and its Founder Merck Mercuriadis. HSF has alleged that Hipgnosis Songs Management ‘cherry picked’ assets from the HSF catalog for a proposed sale to another investment fund, Hipgnosis Songs Capital.

What’s going on with Hipgnosis? — Quick Catch-Up

Hipgnosis Songs Fund is a publicly traded investment fund listed as ‘SONG’ on the London Stock exchange. Meanwhile, Hipgnosis Songs Management—led by Merck Mercuriadis—acts as an investment advisor for the SONG catalog. HSM is majority-owned by private equity firm Blackstone.

Blackstone also runs Hipgnosis Songs Capital, which is a private equity fund in which Mercuriadis owns a minority stake. Mercuriadis also owns a minority stake in HSM—which acts as an investment advisor to the private HSC. (It’s all a bit snake-eating its own tail, to be frank.)

An independent review of Hipgnosis Songs Fund found that the fund’s net royalty income is around 26% lower than a September 2023 valuation. That report also found that HSM manager Merck Mercuriadis materially overstated HSF’s revenue and EBITDA and supported catalog acquisitions with financial analysis that were not up to “music industry standards.”

Who is Cindy Rampersaud?

Cindy Rampersaud is a chartered accountant with considerable experience across a range of organizations. She was first appointed to Hipgnosis in July 2023 after Vania Schlogel left Hipgnosis Songs Fund in May 2023. Prior to coming on board Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Rampersaud held senior executive roles at Virgin, Warner Bros, EMI, the Department of Education, and Pearson.

Hipgnosis Songs Management saw several high-profile executive departures in 2023 including Chief Music Officer Ted Cockle and President of Sync & Creative Tom Stingemore. Meanwhile, Hipgnosis Songs Fund saw the departure of Nick Jarjour, Global Head of Song Management. Tony Barnes also left his role as Executive VP of Digital & Innovation in favor of leading a metaverse gaming company—though he is still employed by Hipgnosis.

Global, US, and Spotify paid streaming music subscriber growth, 2019-2023 (data sources: IFPI, RIAA, Spotify)

Wall Street’s positive response to reports of additional Spotify price increases pushed shares to a 52-week high. But what would larger monthly costs mean for the platform, labels, artists, and the wider industry?

On April 3rd, 2024, Bloomberg reported that new Spotify price increases were imminent. While the streaming company itself didn’t immediately announce or confirm plans to roll out more expensive subscription options, anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter indicated that bumps of $1 (for the individual tier) and $2 (for Duo and the family package) would arrive in markets including the U.K. and Australia by the end of this month.

The same reports relayed that price boosts would hit the U.S. sometime later in 2024, with other higher-cost offerings like the Supremium package possibly on the way.

Notwithstanding the lack of a formal confirmation from Spotify, the prospect of heightened prices (and more significant revenue streams) fueled an enthusiastic response on Wall Street. After touching the mentioned 52-week high of roughly $313, SPOT cracked a value not seen since a Joe Rogan Experience-powered rally in early 2021.

Beyond this decidedly bullish market reaction—one of several that have propelled Spotify stock’s price into the stratosphere since 2020—there’s been relatively little discussion about what the increases mean for the company’s revenue and especially the industry.

Accordingly, here’s a closer look at how Spotify price bumps could shift the deck for different music industry sub-sectors — and Spotify itself.

Report Table of Contents

I. Introduction: A Recap of Spotify’s Reported April 2024 Price Increases

II. Reported Price Increases and Spotify’s Balance Sheet: What the News Means for the Company’s Revenue and Profitability Aims

III. SPOT’s Wall Street Boom: Why Is the Market Responding So Positively to the Prospect of Spotify Price Increases?

Graph: Global, U.S., and Spotify Paid Streaming Growth, 2019 – 2023

IV. How Much Money Will Spotify Price Increases Bring in for Labels – Especially Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music?

V. As Spotify Raises Prices, Are Artists Positioned to Benefit?

VI. Spotify Price Increases for Publishers: A Look At How MLC and Public Performance Payments Could Change

VII. The Bottom Line: Does Spotify’s Retooled Cost Structure Mark the Beginning of a Lucrative New Era or An Attempt to Keep Pace With Inflation?

VIII. By the Dates: A Timeline of Spotify Price Increases, Non-Music Expansions, and Other Selected Developments, January 2023 – April 2024

Please note that reproduction or redistribution of this report is not permitted — thank you!

Warner Music Group is saying ‘no thanks’ to an acquisition of Believe, according to a statement shared early Saturday morning (April 6th).

In a press release issued by the major label, WMG confirmed that “after careful consideration, it has decided not to submit a binding offer for Believe.” The statement continues: “WMG thanks the Ad Hoc Committee and Believe’s leadership team for their time and cooperation, and wishes the company every success in future.”

The decision follows a multi-week acquisition dance that pitted Warner against a consortium of Believe stakeholders aiming to take the company private. That latter group is helmed by company CEO and founder Denis Ladegaillerie, alongside other participants like EQT and TCV.

Shortly after Warner Music Group’s decision, Believe’s ‘Ad-Hoc Committee’ acknowledged the pullback in an email to Digital Music News.

“The Ad-Hoc Committee of Believe has taken note of Warner Music Group’s decision not to submit a binding offer for a combination with Believe (“WMG”), as set out in Warner Music Group’s press release of earlier today,” the Committee emailed.

“The Ad-Hoc Committee will review the situation with all interested parties (including the Consortium composed of EQT, TCV and Mr. Denis Ladegaillerie, as well as the historical shareholders of Believe to determine next steps in relation to the possible evolution of the Company’s control and will inform the market accordingly.”

The Ad Hoc Committee comprises Believe board members who are unaffiliated with the ongoing acquisition attempts by Denis Ladegaillerie, the CEO and founder of Believe, in collaboration with EQT and TCV.  The response suggests that ‘Plan A’ is likely to move forward, with WMG’s pullback paving the way for the original acquisition by the Ladegaillerie alliance.

Earlier in February, Ladegaillerie’s consortium offered €15 (approximately $16.35 USD at current exchange rates) per share, valuing Believe at about $1.6 billion USD. The group had finalized a deal to acquire a 71.92% stake in the company through ‘Block Acquisitions.’

Warner Music Group’s potential acquisition had sparked debate, with some industry players fearing a negative impact on independent music. Others eyed a highly strategic move for WMG.

Last month, news surfaced about WMG entering a bidding war with a consortium for Believe. After a period of negotiation regarding the fair price, WMG was finally granted permission to submit a formal bid. It should be noted that Believe’s share price has also seen a significant rise since the beginning of the year, reflecting the ongoing interest in the company.

As of April 6th, shares of Believe SA (trading as BLV on Euronext Paris) were trading at €16.50, up nearly 60% year-to-date.

Protests, particularly within the independent music sector, quickly emerged. The French Union of Independent Phonographic Producers (UPFI) and the Association of Independent Musicians (AIM) both voiced their opposition to the acquisition attempt. Their primary fear was that this acquisition would stifle competition and hinder investment in new and upcoming musical talents.

The French Union took things a step further, urging the French government to intervene and prevent the acquisition from happening.

The dust-up kicked off when Believe’s CEO and founder, Denis Ladegaillerie, first cobbled together the capital and consortium to take the company private.

As mentioned earlier, Ladegaillerie offered to buy back most of the shares at €15 per share, though Warner Music’s rumored offer of €17 per share sounded more enticing. That stirred a tizzy of pushback from the consortium, which aimed to scuttle Warner’s advance and even outright block the attempt.

Believe positions itself as a global partner for independent artists and labels, offering a broad suite of career development services.

The company’s foundation remains in digital distribution across major streaming platforms and social media channels, though Believe touts a diversified suite of offerings. Beyond distribution, Believe provides ‘Label & Artist Solutions’ encompassing marketing, promotion, funding, and global expansion strategies. Established artists can access tailored ‘Premium Solutions’ for more complex needs.

Believe notes that technology drives its operations, with automation streamlining distribution, royalty management, and data analytics. The company also says it prioritizes artist independence, ensuring greater control and revenue share. That focus has largely shaped Believe’s image since inception and contributed to the pushback against a Warner Music takeover.

Currently, Believe has a global presence in over 50 countries.