Quick take:
- Sound has completed a $20 million funding round led by A16z.
- Palm Tree Crew, A Capital, Sound Ventures, Collab + Currency, and Scalar Capital also joined the round.
- Sound is opening to the public its music collectible platform that enables artists to make a living from their music.
Sound has announced a $20 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16z). The web3 startup also opened to the public its music collectible platform that enables artists to make a living from their music.
The fundraising also attracted participation from Palm Tree Crew, A Capital, Sound Ventures, Collab + Currency, Scalar Capital, Snoop Dogg, Ryan Tedder, and Tay Keith amongst others.
Writing in a press release on Wednesday, the company said: “Our goal is to make Sound the home of music discovery on the internet, and opening this new model to all artists is an important next step.
“We’re so excited to start the next stage of this journey with musicians from all around the world. To get you started, here’s a bit more about the problems we’re solving and how you can get involved as an artist or a music fan.”
Sound wants to fix the music streaming economy by creating a platform that allows artists from anywhere in the world to earn significant income from their music. The current model can earn artists as low as $0.003 per stream even at a time when recorded music revenue continues to rise.
Sound will allow artists to release new songs to a growing community of music collectors, allowing them to sell directly to their fans.
The platform has already generated more than $5.5 million in revenue for a select group of creators, barely a year after its launch. It is now making available its tools to the global artist community allowing more creators to explore new ways of generating income from their music.
If the $5.5 million was generated from the traditional streaming platforms, that would be equivalent to 1.6 billion streams. Sound has been beta-testing its platform with just a small number of creators since launching in 2022.
Sound allows artists to upload songs on-chain whilst maintaining complete control over how to release their music. Artists can also build closer relationships with their audience without involving a middleman, and retain 100% of publishing rights, among other features.
On the other hand, fans can use the platform to discover trending music tracks, use collectible music to prove they were the first to discover the next great talent or make money by curating playlists and sharing links, among other features.
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