Backing anotherblock to boost decentralize music ownership
8.6.2022
The news
We are thrilled to lead anotherblock’s $2.5m seed round alongside music leaders and crypto founders such as Grammy-winning producer DannyBoyStyles, Dune.xzy’s founder Fredrik Haga, and Centrifuge.io founder Maex Ament. This is our first investment into the web3 space.
The big picture
NFTs, or so called non-fungible tokens, are already reshaping the structure of ownership on the web. NFTs are blockchain-based records of assets, which is especially compelling for media assets like music royalty rights. They create new tools and opportunities for their ownerships and reshape the economic relationship with their communities.
What has excited us the most are opportunities for consumers and creators if the web becomes literally ownable, disrupting power away from centralized players. This will enable consumer to own their digitally-scarce assets with more control over their digital environment– and even a possibility to earn money along the way. On the other hand, creators can program NFTs to benefit from future transactions of their intellectual property, be even closer to their communities, and cut out intermediates capturing margins from you.
The next stop is music. We believe the strong communities built around the music industry make the perfect case for disruption by decentralized ownership through NFTs.
“The innovation in the industry to date has been focused on creation and distribution, steering clear of the last frontier is what happens between them: ownership” – Michel D. Traore, co-founder and CEO of anotherblock.
The product
anotherblock is a B2C marketplace for royalty-backed music NFTs. By signing up, music lovers to co-own their favorite piece of music, build their own catalogue, and participate on their song’s royalties.
anotherblock will begin offering its first drops in August, led by exclusive tracks from major figures in the electronic music and pop scenes. Drops will be priced democratically for the market, with the occasional super-rare token thrown in to keep things lively. The goal is to enable artists to fund their music directly. Many of the creators anotherblock will be working with have never ventured into music rights shares or web3 before.
We were looking for platforms that allow communities, investors, consumers or super fans to invest in their favorite music by owning part of its music rights and even earn royalties through their ownership. anotherblock tackled it and aims to disrupt this landscape in the future:
- Consumers can own a piece of the song on-chain, and earning money through their royalty-backed NFT
- Diversify and democratize ownership of music rights
- Enabling artists to fund their music directly through the platforms enabling this innovation
- More to come, we don’t want to expose the whole roadmap 😉
The team
The company was founded in 2021 by the entrepreneurs Michel D. Traore, Sebastian Ljungberg and Filip Strömsten. anotherblock was built upon the idea that that accessing music rights in music should be easy, accessible and democratic. By connecting music rights to NFTs, anotherblock creates a smooth and easy way to both buy and sell music rights. The company’s founders created anotherblock to increase the value of music by introducing it to a free and open market. This will solve the institutionalized imbalance of power within the industry.
Our thesis
Out of all the solutions in the music ownership and NFT space, Anotherblock was the first one where the NFTs have real underlying value and utility for holders. Their team and pipeline of drops blew our mind– we believe Anotherblock is truly democratizing the ownership of music for everyone. Additionally, their tech intrigued as particularly, especially their take on the minting solutions, nailing the UX towards the non-custodian wallet generation as well as payment offering is unmatched by their competitors.
