Royal music marketplace received funding from the Founders Fund and Paradigm for its venture to sell song rights as NFTs.
A new venture in the music industry uses non-fungible tokens as a means for song rights redistribution. The Royal music marketplace will allow its user base to purchase shares of songs via the marketplace. In doing so, they earn royalties as their musical investments gain popularity.
Recently, the marketplace acquired two new investors in support of their NFT venture. The Founders Fund, backed by crypto enthusiast Peter Theil, and Paradigm, a long time venture capital firm, announced their support of Royal.
Together the two investment firms are planning a $16 million seed funding round. Participation in the round includes Atomic, of which one of the partners helped negotiate the deal with Founders Fund.
Justin Blau, an EDM creator also known as 3LAU, and JD Ross of Opendoor founded Royal music marketplace in an effort for the democratization of musical assets. “A true fan might want to own something way earlier than a speculator would even get wind of it,” said Blau. “Democratizing access to asset classes is a huge part of crypto’s future.”
Blau, as a music artist himself, personally felt the impact NFTs have on the music industry. He said that when COVID killed off touring, NFTs were a way to bring power back to artists. Earlier this year the musician sold custom songs and artwork for around $11.7 million in crypto.
As the NFT trend continues strong, Royal music marketplace finds itself in the perfect position to make a move in the industry. While bidding isn’t available on the site at the moment, those interested in joining the Royal community can sign up for early access on the site.
NFTs and the Music Industry
While NFTs aren’t necessarily new, the surge of interest in them is. Especially when it comes to certain industries outside of the crypto space. One in particular is the music industry. Music industry, which was ravaged by the pandemic’s effects on live events, interest in the NFT space surged.
Over this past year the music industry transformed their world for good with NFTs. Be it with royalties, as seen with Royal and another company called BAND, or new ways for artists to control their monetized merch.
While many smaller companies popped up in the rise of NFTs, other industry giants stepped into the game as well. Just recently, Sony Entertainment invested in an upcoming NFT marketplace along with Eminem and other industry stars.
As NFTs continues their expansion from just digital artwork to more practical usage, certainly major industries will continue to incorporate them.