acquisitions
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Kids’ audio platform Yoto, which is behind the screen-free Yoto Player and Yoto Mini, signed an industry-first agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG) to bring music titles and artists from its labels and catalogs to the platform for the first time. Founded by Ben Drury and Filip Denker, Yoto allows children to access music without being exposed to advertising or unsuitable content. The UMG partnership kicked off this month with the launch of Queen’s Greatest Hits: Volume 1 as a “Yoto Card.” That will be followed in the coming months by releases from artists like Bob Marley & the Wailers and labels including Motown Records and Disney Music Group. The Queen cards will be available on Yoto webstores in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union; Yoto Amazon stores in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada; and the Queen online store.
Round Hill Music acquired Linus Entertainment, the Canadian independent music company that includes the recording and publishing catalogs of Borealis Records, Mummy Dust Music, Solid Gold Records, Stony Plain Records, The Children’s Group and True North Records, as well as the distribution company Independent Digital Licensing Agency Inc (IDLA). The acquisition encompasses over 3,000 songs and more than 20,000 master recordings. It includes recordings from Buffy Sainte-Marie, Gordon Lightfoot and Taj Mahal, among many others.
Reservoir Media and PopArabia jointly acquired the catalog of Cairo-based content production and distribution company RE Media, encompassing sub-labels Moseeqa and Moseeqa TV and several of RE Media’s owned and operated YouTube channels. The acquisition includes more than 6,000 recordings and compositions from artists such as Amr Diab, George Wassouf, Dalida and Mohamed Mounir. Reservoir and PopArabia additionally acquired the master and publishing rights for the catalog of Egyptian rap duo El Sawareekh.
Timbaland acquired a stake in lifestyle and vinyl brand 12on12, where he will serve as a strategic partner and curator. According to a press release, 12on12 allows “cultural icons” to curate soundtracks of 12 songs “that have inspired, affected and influenced them,” which are then pressed on 12″ vinyl. Timbaland is currently working on his own 12on12 release that will drop at the beginning of next year. His Verzuz partner Swizz Beatz previously acquired a stake in the company in February 2022; since then, 12on12 has expanded into releasing limited edition fine art prints and lifestyle pieces featuring co-curators’ artwork. The company has already collaborated with Run DMC, Swizz Beatz and Travis Scott x Saint Laurent, among others.
Apple Podcasts added several new hosting providers that will support Delegated Delivery, which allows creators to publish subscriber episodes directly from their participating hosting provider dashboard. The new partners are Audiomeans, Captivate, Podbean, Podspace and Transistor, all of which will support Delegated Delivery by the end of 2023. Elsewhere, the company revealed an exclusive integration with Linkfire, which is expanding into podcasting this fall with a toolkit built specifically for podcasters. Using that toolkit, podcasters on Apple Podcasts will have the ability to generate an unlimited number of smart links with landing pages for their podcasts and measure how listeners engage with them using the Linkfire Insights dashboard.
The Salzburg Festival is making its operas, orchestral concerts, lieder recitals and chamber music exclusively available on the recently launched Apple Music Classical streaming platform. More than 100 such recordings are already available at launch.
Matthew Berry‘s fantasy sports and sports betting media company FantasyLife closed a $2 million dollar friends and family round from investors including John Legend, YouTube co-founder/former CEO Chad Hurley and Wasserman Media Group chairman/CEO Casey Wasserman, among many others. Hurley, Wasserman and The SpringHill Company co-founder/CEO Maverick Carter (also an investor, with LeBron James’ LRMR Ventures) will also join the FantasyLife advisory board. Fantasy Life additionally announced new partnerships with brands including Epic Seats, Webex by Cisco and Buffalo Wild Wings.
Believe‘s global dance and electronic imprint b:electronic signed Berlin-based house and techno label mobilee records and Feathers & Bones, the new label from electronic artist Rodriguez Jr.
The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University and E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt’s TeachRock education program announced they would team up to help teachers bring American popular music into the curriculums of classrooms across the United States. Future collaborations will include teacher workshops, student internships, seminars and conferences, curriculum development and joint research activities. The efforts between the two organizations will begin at Asbury Park Middle School and High Schools in New Jersey with the Harmony Student Wellness Program, which uses “popular music as a springboard” for lessons around self-awareness, self-management, relationship skills, responsible decision-making and social awareness, according to the TeachRock website.
Absolute Label Services partnered with Prestige Management for the release of Busted’s forthcoming Greatest Hits 2.0 compilation. Absolute will provide a range of services for the release, including distribution, marketing and project management. The album compiles newly-recorded versions of all of Busted’s biggest hits, fan favorites and live staples, with deluxe formats featuring a number of previously unreleased collaborations with artists including McFly, James Arthur, You Me At Six, The Vamps, Bowling For Soup, Dashboard Confessional, Deaf Havana, Wheatus and Charlotte Sands.
BMI has accepted an offer to sell to New Mountain Capital, a private equity firm that has been quietly looking at music assets over the last few years, according to sources. It’s unclear if the deal has been signed yet.
Sources suggest that New Mountain Capital will pay about $1.7 billion for BMI which claims $145 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in its first year acting as a for-profit entity, which was announced last October. That suggests that BMI — aka Broadcast Music Inc. — is trading on a nearly 12 times EBITDA multiple. Since BMI has no debt, it’s likely that New Mountain Capital will use a healthy level of debt to finance the deal.
According to New Mountain Capital’s website, the firm has $40 billion in assets under management and chases a “growth-oriented, value-add investment approach, rather than reliance on excessive risk, as the best path to high and consistent long-term returns.” The firm has made investments in such industries as software, business services, information and data, logistics and financial services among a few other sectors.
Besides New Mountain, sources say, bidders included Apollo Global Management, Brookfield Asset Management and its music investment Primary Wave, and RedBird Capital Partners. New Mountain and Brookfield/Primary Wave became the finalist, until BMI accepted New Mountain’s offer. Moreover, sources add that Moelis & Co. has been acting as an advisor to New Mountain while BMI has acknowledged that it hired Goldman Sachs to explore a strategic partnership.
BMI first put itself up for sale last year and at the time said it was switching from a not-for-profit operation to a for-profit company. In its fiscal 2022, before it switched to a for-profit entity, BMI reported that it collected $1.573 billion, while distributions totaled $1.471 billion. While the company has stated that the move is being made to benefit its affiliates and will allow the company to spend more money on developing technology and infrastructure so it can better services and songwriters, the strategy shift has caused consternation among songwriters and publishers.
Last week, a group of songwriters and creative advocates wrote a letter to BMI asking how such a move would benefit songwriters and questioning whether the profit would come at the expense of songwriter payments. The groups that signed the letter were Black Music Artists Coalition; Music Artists Coalition; Songwriters of North America; SAG-Aftra and Artists Rights Alliance.
Since its formation in 1940, BMI has been operating as a not-for-profit organization, paying out all of the money it collects to songwriters and publishers, even though it was a private company. In response to the songwriter and creator organization letter, BMI president Mike O’Neill said that because of its first year acting as a for-profit entity, it has allowed the company to upgrade its services portal, including new dashboards, among several other initiatives. He also said in pursuing a BMI sale, the company “would ensure that any partner embraces our mission of prioritizing the interests of songwriters, including their financial success.
BMI declined to comment for this story, and other firms mentioned didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment or couldn’t be reached.
Round Hill Music has acquired the remaining share of Big Loud Shirt’s catalog of music publishing rights, bringing Round Hill Music’s ownership of Big Loud Shirt’s music catalog to 100%. Round Hill previously acquired a share of the Big Loud Shirt catalog in 2014.
Round Hill has also acquired 50% of the writer’s income streams from songwriter/producer Craig Wiseman, the founder/owner of Big Loud Shirt.
The Big Loud Shirt catalog comprises more than 1,200 songs recorded by artists including Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley, Carrie Underwood, Faith Hill, Luke Bryan and Tim McGraw. The majority date prior to 2015, with 75% of them at least seven years old.
According to a press release announcing the deal, streaming income generated from Big Loud Shirt’s catalog increased approximately 200% from 2017 to 2021.
The deal brings new rights into Round Hill’s portfolio and expands its existing interests in songs including McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying” (co-written by Wiseman), Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” and “Blown Away” and Strait’s “I Saw God Today.”
According to a release, this acquisition also increases Round Hill’s exposure to the country music market, which as of December 31, 2022, comprised 11% of their portfolio.
Round Hill Music CEO Josh Gruss said in a statement, “Craig Wiseman and his publishing company, Big Loud Shirt, have produced some of the highest profile, most recognizable and enduring country music hits of the last three decades, bringing them firmly in line with the song profile of the Company’s portfolio. We have a terrific working relationship with Craig, who we have known for many years, and are deeply familiar with these songs. This investment not only enables us to further increase Round Hill Music’s exposure to the fast-growing Country music genre but also provides an exciting opportunity for us to leverage our in-house platform to manage these incredible songs, maximizing their income streams and further growing their value.”
Wiseman added, “I have known and been working with Round Hill for a decade and I’m thrilled to be expanding our relationship by sharing these incredible pieces of art with them. I know they will manage these songs carefully and effectively, identifying creative opportunities to bring them to new audiences worldwide.”
GEMA, the German collective management organization (CMO), announced Monday (July 24) that it has acquired a majority stake in the SoundAware Group, a Dutch company that provides music recognition services to collecting societies (including those in the Netherlands and Belgium) as well as market research and media companies. SoundAware will continue to operate independently from […]
Sherrese Clarke Soares‘ HarbourView Equity Partners and Diddy‘s Revolt are among the bidders finalizing second-round offers to acquire a majority stake in BET Media Group from Paramount Global, according to two sources with knowledge of the talks.
Jesse Collins Entertainment, which produced the Grammys and this year’s SuperBowl halftime performance by Rihanna, is also mulling joining HarbourView and Revolt’s joint offer for the package of networks that includes VH1, said one of the sources, who requested anonymity due to the confidential nature of the talks.
Paramount Global is reportedly exploring selling a majority stake in BET Media Group, which includes BET, BET+, BET Gospel, BET HER, BET International, BET Jams, BET Soul, BET Studios and VH1, for as much as $3 billion, as it looks to offload assets like book publisher Simon & Shuster and preschool service Noggin to focus on its streaming business.
Sources say other bidders submitting second-round offers for BET Media Group include Tyler Perry and Byron Allen. Paramount is reportedly looking to finalize deals this fall.
A spokesperson for BET declined to comment for this story.
Soares, whose private equity firm owns rights to songs by regional Mexican trio Eslabon Armado, Luis Fonsi and Florida Georgia Line, confirmed during a red-carpet interview with Billboard at the BET Awards that HarbourView has an active bid for the media group.
“We are here because of how much we support the brand and how excited we are about the opportunity around the brand itself,” Soares said, declining to share further details.
A former Morgan Stanley managing director, Soares founded HarbourView in 2021, initially to acquire publishing and music recording rights — an investment strategy she helped develop as CEO and co-founder of Tempo Music. More recently, Soares has guided HarbourView’s investments in media companies, aiming to build out a distribution network for content soundtracked by artists in its catalog.
In March, HarbourView led a $90 million investment in a minority stake in MACRO, a film, television and branding company founded by Charles D. King, whose projects include Judas and the Black Messiah. Directed by Shaka King, Judas made history in 2021 as the first-ever film with an all-Black production team to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.
“Our interest is to be fuel to the entertainment and media segment,” Soares told Billboard at the BET Awards, referencing HarbourView’s investments in catalogs and MACRO. Regarding the results of the bids for BET, Soares said, “We’ll let the cards fall where they may.”
Neon 16’s co-founder/CEO Lex Borrero and Ntertain chairman Tommy Mottola teamed up to acquire Arro Media, a music marketing and social media agency that boasts a roster of clients like Adidas, Red Bull, NFL, XBOX, Bacardi, The Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation and more.
Founded by Cristina Arcay, the company will be rebranded as AM16.
“We have built a growing agency that will redefine how brands connect their marketing and advertising to the Latin culture because we live it day in and day out,” said Borrero and Mottola in a press release. “Our team has a finger on the pulse of trends, uniquely positioned to spot them before they happen, across music, television and film. Today’s announcement further differentiates our capabilities from competitors and will bring an even more comprehensive offering to our clients and partners.”
AM16 will find the intersection between music, entertainment and culture. Together, they will bring Arro’s capabilities with Neon16’s “innovative approach to cultural storytelling and experiential activations,” they said. The merger will include brand strategy and partnerships, product development, content production, music marketing, social media management, digital marketing, public relations, creative design services and experiential events.
“Launching AM16 agency represents an exhilarating new chapter in my career and the future of Arro,” said Arcay, who is appointed as co-president. “As a Latina entrepreneur, being able to lead and learn alongside our new partners represents a huge opportunity to reshape the industry by championing diversity, elevating ideas and fostering cultural movements that resonate with audiences worldwide.”
Chief marketing officer and co-president Gerry Rojas added, “I feel empowered and excited to be working in a Latino-owned agency where we’re reimagining how brands and artists tell their stories authentically, while raising the Latin cultural currency and creating a true, positive impact rooted in music and culture.”
Neon16 works with A-listers such as Tainy, Thalia, Juan Luis Guerra and Danna Paola. Earlier this year, the company also played a key role in the Netflix Original series La Firma — a Latin music competition that sought to sign the next big Latin music star, featuring Tainy, Rauw Alejandro, Nicki Nicole, and Lex Borrero.
Borrero and Mottola also executive produced Thalia’s music docuseries, Thalia’s Mixtape, via Ntertain on Paramount+.
Artist management company In De Goot Entertainment and independent record label So Recordings (part of the U.K.-based Silva Screen Music Group) have partnered to form the label imprint SO In De Goot, Billboard can reveal.
The first U.S. signing to the imprint is Princess Goes, the band fronted by actor and musician Michael C. Hall alongside keyboardist Matt Katz-Bohen and drummer Peter Yanowitz; the group will release its sophomore album later this year.
Bill McGathy
Jennie McGathy
“We have developed a great relationship with Adam Greenup and So Recordings and have major respect for the work they do and their meaningful roster,” said In De Goot Entertainment president/owner Bill McGathy in a statement. “Thanks to So Recordings’ success in the UK and Europe, this new partnership allows In De Goot to strengthen our global footprint and offer new opportunities to our roster and So’s roster in the U.S.”
Adam Greenup
Courtesy of Adam Greenup
So Recordings MD Adam Greenup added, “Bill and his whole team at In De Goot have been our close friends and allies for nearly a decade. We have seen how the team commits and delivers in all areas of North American promotion and beyond. Bill and I had a joint lightbulb moment one morning in his New York office — our roster (old and new) aligned with In De Goot’s weight and influence in the U.S. rock and indie lanes — the fit was just obvious. We would sign, record and promote artists together.”
In De Goot’s current roster includes Biffy Clyro, GWAR, Halestorm and Shinedown, while the So Recordings roster boasts Placebo, Enter Shikari, Band of Skulls and Dinosaur Pile-Up.
Ariana Grande‘s r.e.m. beauty drew a strategic investment led by private investment firm Sandbridge Capital with participation from Strand Equity, HYBE America, Live Nation Entertainment and Universal Music Group. The funds will be used for product innovation, talent acquisition and geographic expansion.
Sony Music Masterworks made a majority investment in Barcelona-based live music and experiential events producer Proactiv Entertainment. Under the deal, Proactiv managing director Nicolas Renna will continue leading the company’s day-to-day operations while working closely with Sony Masterworks president Mark Cavell and Sony Music Spain & Portugal president Jose-Maria Barbat to grow the business.
Music collaboration platform boombox.io, a new company from entrepreneur Tom Chavez, closed $7 million in seed capital. The round was led by Forerunner with participation from Chavez’s super{set} startup studio as well as Ulu Ventures. The funds will allow the generative AI-assisted platform to build out its team, accelerate product development and strike new partnerships. Launched in November, boombox.io allows music producers to store, version and track their music files; collect time-stamped feedback on audio files; communicate via iOS and Android apps; manage splits; and create legally-binding contracts.
Glendale, Ariz.-based VAI Resort announced the VAI Amphitheater, a new 8,000-capacity venue slated to open in 2024. Set against the backdrop of the resort, the venue will offer multiple viewing options, including hotel room balconies, as well as a $40 million stage and state-of-the-art technology. To bring the amphitheater to life, the resort has partnered with live event solutions company TAIT Group and audiovisual company Solotech.
88rising has partnered with Steve Aoki on FLUXGEN, a new creative hub for Asian talent globally. The first release under the new venture is “The Show,” a collaboration between Aoki and Mandopop star JJ Lin.
Music composition system DAACI, which is driven by a suite of AI tools, acquired fellow AI music technology companies MXX and WiSL. Founded by Dr. Joe Lyske, DAACI uses dynamic music AI that allows artists and composers to tailor compositions for specific uses in gaming, digital worlds, XR or VR experiences.
Amplifyd, an auction platform and marketplace for the music industry, launched out of beta and announced a partnership with Insomniac Events, with which it hosted a series of charity auctions at Insomniac’s 2023 EDC festival in Las Vegas that featured participating artists Marshmello, Armin Van Buuren, Yellow Claw and Deorro.
Tokyo-based virtual live music event platform Vark raised 1 billion yen ($7.2 million) in Series C funding through a third-party allotment of new shares to SBI Investments and NetEase Games, in addition to existing investors JAFCO Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and ANRI. The funds will be used to strengthen the company’s product development system, develop new businesses and more.
Myxt, a collaborative workspace for audio creators, partnered with AI stem separation platform AudioShake under a deal that will allow Myxt users to utilize AudioShake’s source separation tool, create stems, and export them for opportunities in content creation, synch licensing, mixing and more.
AI music analysis and recommendation platform Cyanite acquired aptone, an AI-based service that allows music producers to classify and search samples. Aptone founder Johannes Giani will join the Cyanite board as director of information technology, helping Cyanite develop its technology and continue enhancing and expanding the offering for Cyanite’s international customers including BMG, Pond5, APM Music and RTL. The acquisition allows Cyanite to increase the accuracy with which it analyzes and tags samples. Both Cyanite and aptone are based in Germany.
In order to meet the growing demand for physical music and video in the United Kingdom, Utopia Music has entered a long-term contract with DP World for a £100 million ($124.8 million), 25,000-square meter warehouse in Bicester, United Kingdom. The new warehouse will feature technologically advanced solutions, including high-density storage and robotic transfer of product, to enable the efficient distribution of over 30 million units a year across the United Kingdom and export markets. Stock will be moving from Utopia Distribution Services’ current warehouse in Aylesbury, United Kingdom (inherited from physical distributor Cinram, whose assets were acquired by Utopia in 2022) to the new facility over the summer.
Swedish Web3 music company anotherblock has raised €4 million ($4.34 million) in an investment round led by Stride.VC and joined by Swedish House Mafia member Axwell (whose Swedish House Mafia partner, Steve Angello, previously invested in the company). The money will be used to help anotherblock scale globally and make its product available to a wider range of artists, producers and record companies.
Seeker Music has acquired the masters and publishing catalog of Charlotte Caffey — lead guitarist, keyboardist and primary songwriter for The Go-Go’s. Caffey wrote some of the group’s biggest hits, including their breakthrough song, “We Got the Beat,” as well as “Head Over Heels,” “Vacation,” “How Much More” and “Turn To You.” Caffey has also written songs for artists including Keith Urban (“But for the Grace of God”) and her Go-Go’s bandmate Belinda Carlisle, as well as songs for film and TV including the theme song for the Clueless TV series. The deal was brokered by veteran record executives Michael Rosenblatt and David Simone.
300 Entertainment has partnered with Florida-based imprint Remain Solid, founded by manager and executive 100k Track, for a label joint venture. The first artist signed under the deal is Brooklyn-based rapper BreezyLYN, who released the remix to her single, “Bad Bitches” featuring Lola Brooke and Kali, earlier this month.
Songtradr announced a partnership with TikTok around the video-sharing platform’s Commercial Music Library. Under the deal, Songtradr is now a certified “Subscription Sound Partner,” supplying music for the Commercial Music Library, which gives businesses, organizations and creators access to pre-licensed, rights-safe music for organic content and paid advertising.
Music technology companies Tuned Global and Revelator struck a partnership that will allow digital service providers and other Tuned Global customers to enable artists to mint and distribute music releases as NFTs directly on Web2 streaming platforms using Revelator’s Web3 tech. “These NFTs will coexist with traditional streamed music, enabling fans to enjoy digital collectibles and actively engage with token gated content, while providing artists with blockchain-based payment opportunities through smart contracts,” according to a press release announcing the deal. Added Revelator CEO/founder Bruno Guez: “This partnership lets music lovers collect NFTs in fan-friendly ways where they are already experiencing music. Fans won’t need to mess with wallets or special Web3 players, or even leave their favorite music platform. They’ll pay with a credit card. This access and ease will open up new revenue streams for artists, as more fans jump in.”
AI music startup AudioShake announced a $2.7 million seed funding round led by Indicator Ventures, with participation from Precursor Ventures and Side Door Ventures. Also taking part in the round are Metallica-backed Black Squirrel Partners, AJR, Google’s Black Angel Group, peermusic, Audius CEO Roneil Rumburg, S-Curve Records CEO Steve Greenberg and Crush Ventures, the venture arm of Crush Music, among others. Audioshake’s B2B deep learning technology deconstructs audio into stems so that they can be made available for new uses across music, film, dubbing, transcription, synthetic voice and more. The company has worked with departments from all three major labels as well as publishers including Primary Wave, Hipgnosis, Spirit, peermusic, Concord, Downtown and Reservoir.
Unitea, a Miami-based engage-to-earn music platform, has raised a seed round of $7 million led by 1st Class Guernsey, Chaos Capital and Fuel Venture Capital. The funds will be used to further expand the platform’s capabilities within the music industry and beyond. The platform allows users to share music and create content to earn digital tokens, called Karma, that can be redeemed for exclusive rewards including custom digital assets, concert tickets and artist meet-and-greets. The company’s board of directors includes Pitbull and Claude VonStroke.
Freshsound, a self-serve licensing platform for commercially released music, closed a €2 million ($2.17 million) seed funding round that will support the company as it seeks to expand internationally while continuing to grow in the Nordic market. The new investment comes less than a year after the company’s pre-seed funding round worth €1.3 million ($1.41 million). The latest investment round was led by Zenith Venture Capital and Aligned. Founded in 2021 by Stevie Gyasi and Sara Larsson, Freshsound boasts a dynamic pricing model that gives clients instant quotes for any use and the ability to license their music for commercial purposes.
CD Baby and creator copyright protection platform Cosynd have expanded their existing partnership with the integration of Cosynd’s Copyright Registration API into the CD Baby platform, which allows artists to register copyrights and establish legal ownership over their work.
Music, entertainment and technology platform LiveOne struck an exclusive content distribution deal with OTT Studio, a streaming technology platform and connected TV (CTV) app publisher. Under the deal, LiveOne will serve as OTT Studio’s exclusive music streaming provider, delivering LiveOne’s 600 radio stations via OTT’s Music Plus application. The agreement will expand the distribution of LiveOne’s audio and entertainment content to an additional 47 million CTVs in North America via LG’s webOS and Vizio’s SmartCast platforms.
SiriusXM announced a multi-year extension and expansion of their services agreement with Mercedes-Benz, under which the automaker is expected to make the installation of SiriusXM a standard feature on Mercedes-Benz models available in the United States, starting with model year 2024 vehicles. SiriusXM’s “most advanced audio entertainment experience,” SiriusXM with 360L, is also expected to be included in future Mercedes-Benz models, according to a press release.
Lyric licensing and data solutions company LyricFind signed an agreement with GEMA, Germany’s mechanical and performance rights society, in a further expansion of LyricFind’s international footprint.
Duetti, a new music financing startup led by former Tidal COO Lior Tibon and former Apple Music business development executive Christopher Nolte, has closed a $32 million funding round to launch its new service, the company announced Wednesday (May 3). The round includes money from Viola Ventures/Viola Credit, Roc Nation, Untitled and Presight Capital.
The company is aiming to get in on the catalog sales market by providing funding to rising or independent artists in exchange for full catalogs, individual tracks or parts of tracks — then optimizing and growing their returns through marketing and/or social platform promotion. Duetti likens the deals it’s making as akin to the big catalog sales that major artists like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and others have executed in recent years, but for smaller artists — or at least those who have had songs on streaming platforms for two years and racked up at least 500,000 streams within the past 12 months.
Lior Tibon
“In recent years, the trend of legacy A-list musicians selling their entire catalogs has left independent artists out of the equation,” said Tibon, who serves as Duetti’s CEO, in a statement. “Now, artists at all stages of their careers can easily capture the potential of their tracks and catalogs to help them reach the next step of their journey. We are arming artists with the information they need to choose when, and how, to leverage their assets from a position of strength.”
Duetti has been in stealth mode, and during that period it says it has partnered with over 60 artists — including Sylvan LaCue, CVBZ and Croosh — across 100 tracks, with acquisitions totaling as much as $400,000; Duetti’s deals take roughly 30 days to complete on average, according to the company. It now sees an opportunity to open up this funding model to more than 70,000 additional independent artists. The company plans to use the seed funding to expand its staff, onboard more artists and boost the value of the tracks already in its catalog. It’s tapping into a market that includes companies like Sound Royalties, which recently sold to GoDigital, that aim to help artists finance their lives and careers by selling royalty streams and other assets and seeing higher returns in the long run.
“Duetti’s cutting edge technology enables efficient analysis of an artist’s potential for successfully monetizing a catalog or track — we are incredibly excited by the potential of their business model and the new, independent investment class it unlocks,” said Avi Zeevi, fintech investor and co-founder of Viola Ventures, in a statement accompanying the announcement. “Independent artist revenue growth is outpacing the entire industry and their highly scalable model returns revenue uncorrelated to broader market and economic conditions. A win-win for investors and musicians.”
Sony Music Corp. is in the process of helping Bad Bunny manager Noah Assad — the CEO of Latin music label and management company Rimas Entertainment — buy out his partner, Rafael Ricardo Jiménez Dan, a former Venezuelan government official who has a 60% majority stake in the company, sources familiar with the matter tell Billboard.
Rimas — which manages, records and publishes Bad Bunny — also has a label and management roster that includes Arcángel, Eladio Carrión, Jowell & Randy and Tommy Torres. The company was founded in 2014 in Puerto Rico and now has about 100 employees.
According to sources, Sony will participate in a buyout of Jiménez, who has not been involved in running Rimas’ day-to-day operations since 2018. That will result in a reshuffling of the company’s ownership and will likely leave Bad Bunny with an equity stake in the firm— and either Assad, or the combination of Assad and Bad Bunny, with majority ownership.
However the deal is ultimately financed, Sony itself is expected to wind up with a significant minority share in Rimas, which it will assign to The Orchard, its rapidly growing music distribution and artists/label services powerhouse that currently distributes Rimas.
Billboard estimates that Rimas Entertainment — the record label and the management company — has a valuation above $300 million without including the company’s publishing assets, which sources say are not currently being considered as a part of this transaction.
Assad and Jimenez, respectively, also have the same 40–60% ownership stakes in the music publishing assets, Jiménez tells Billboard. The publishing company, which includes some Bad Bunny songs and was launched by Assad, Jiménez and lawyer Carlos Souffront, is also up for sale. The sellers are seeking a $70 million to $75 million valuation for the overall publishing company, those sources add. As on the recorded music side, Assad plans to retain his stake in the song catalog, which means that the Jiménez stake could potentially fetch $42 million to $45 million.
Assessing a valuation for the publishing deal is tricky, sources say, because many of Bad Bunny’s songs are still widely popular, which makes it harder to calculate how much their plays will decay until they level off and become a predictable income stream, likely in a decade or two from now. As it is, the Rimas publishing portfolio —which is currently being administered by Universal Music Publishing Group — has about $5 million to $7.5 million in net publisher share (gross profit after paying songwriter royalties), a level it is expected to maintain over the next few years.
The music publishing portion of Jiménez’s Rimas holdings have been shopped to private equity players, sources say, and there is currently no known buyer. That’s in contrast to the hoped-for sale of the label/management holdings, which appears to have only been offered to Sony. However, sources wonder if Assad has matching rights on the publishing assets, which means that he could also arrange a deal to buy the Jimenez publishing stake if he matches the highest offer.
Jiménez is being represented for the expected publishing sale by Brian Richards, co-founder and managing partner of the investment advisory firm Artisan. On the record label/management side of Rimas, sources say Jiménez is being advised by Mitchell, Silberberg & Krupp partner Joel Schoenfeld, the former general counsel of eMusic and BMG’s senior vp of business affairs before that; and by Colin Finkelstein, the former CFO for EMI Music, who sometimes consults with investors on music assets and also owns and runs a few artist management firms.
Both deals are said to be very complex, and sources say they have been in the works for months — with some wondering whether the deals have been stalled due to friction between the two partners, Jiménez and Assad.
Another looming issue may be how much financial capacity Sony Music Group has to close deals right now. As Sony negotiates the stake in Rimas, it is reportedly also in talks to acquire part — or possibly all — of the Michael Jackson estate in a deal that could carry a valuation of $1.5 billion to $2 billion.
The question is whether Sony’s corporate leadership in Japan has signed off on the funding and the completion of both deals and if the costs involved in the deals might force Sony to choose to between them.
If both deals are completed, sources suggest that they would likely still need to be approved by regulators. Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, as of Feb. 27, 2023, any merger and/or acquisition that has a transaction value of more than $111 million — or if the contemplated combined entity will have total assets of more than $445 million — must file and seek regulatory approval.
Assad, Jiménez, Sony, Finkelstein, Schoenfeld and Richards either declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Additional reporting by Alexei Barrionuevo