Key takeaways
- Royal, a firm that is creating a marketplace for digital assets tied to musicians, has raised $55 million in a Series A round-headed by a16z.
- Users may purchase NFTs, which reflect common ownership in works by musicians, through the startup’s partnership with musicians.
NFT music rights company Royal has acquired another big round of funding, this time from Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto investment arm, less than three months after unveiling a $16 million initial round headed by Founders Fund and Paradigm.
By issuing digital collectibles and non-fungible tokens, Royal hopes to provide musicians a method to share ownership of their work with their listeners. In some ways, the company’s recent fall is illustrated by the discovery of 3Lau, who issued a collection of 333 distinct pieces of art that also accounted for 50% of the broadcast rights ownership of his song in the worst-case scenario. According to the firm, over 120,000 people have registered.
Users may purchase NFTs, which reflect common ownership in works by musicians, through the startup’s partnership with musicians. Justin Blau, an EDM artist known as 3LAU, and JD Ross, a co-founder of home-buying website Opendoor, are leading the charge. Royal is a promising first step into NFT capabilities outside of the realms of visual art and games. According to 3Lau, while an artist may give up ownership of a song in NFT Drop, they also unlock additional value from their work.
“Music was not bought as art,” he said. “No matter what percentage artists give, it unlocks value. Because [fans] They are arguably one of, say, 100 people who own something. They will want to promote artists in more ways and add more value to society.”
“We’re moving slowly,” 3Lau commented. “We’re building our security, audit, and infrastructure to be usable.”
3Lau’s ultimate objective is to build a platform where aspiring artists may launch their careers and use NFTs to support future albums. Royal will use the extra funds to assist construct the engineering and legal infrastructure needed to enable such a product. Blau handed out hundreds of NFTs through the platform last month, which owned 50% of the streaming rights to his most recent tune.
The business claims that secondary purchases for those tokens have already totaled roughly $600,000, valuing the new single at $6 million. Musicians that are crypto-friendly, like Blau, have already made millions from crypto investors eager to diversify their holdings through NFTs while also supporting good causes.
Royal also intends to provide a local exchange where users will be able to trade artist materials without having to set up a portfolio.
A16z Crypto will be joined in the round by a variety of musical performers, including The Chainsmokers, Nas, Logic, and Kygo. The investment also included CAA and NEA’s Connect Ventures, Crush Music, Coinbase Ventures, Founders Fund, and Paradigm.
