Currents: Trad media tries out Web3

This article is a web version of our biweekly, member-exclusive digest dedicated to our editorial and database updates. We break down and connect the dots among announcements of funding rounds, acquisitions, NFT drops, and other highlights in the music/tech ecosystem that we track as part of updating our suite of databases.

We’re rebranding these editorial and database updates into a new vertical called Currents (thanks to our visual designer Ana Carolina for the fancy new banner). The rebrand is in line with the eponymous, read-only channel we launched in our private Discord server last month — in which our research team curates links to news announcements that shed light on the latest music/tech trends, often tying news to ongoing community discussions in the server. If you’re not already in our Discord server, please click here to authorize the Memberful Discord bot, which should give you access.

We’ve identified a few themes over the last two weeks in our research and additions to our Music/Audio Tech Investment Dashboards and Music Web3 Dashboards worth a connective look, including:

Trad media investments in major NFT collections

Traditional media companies are continuing to buy “blue chip” NFTs to leverage and develop valuable IP.

In our last digest, we covered Universal Music Group’s purchase of another Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, adding to their musical NFT supergroup, Kingship. Since then:

• iHeartMedia announced they will be building a new NFT network for podcasts, by first investing in 10 to 15 prominent NFT collections including CryptoPunks, Mutant Ape and World of Women.
• UnitedMasters announced purchases of NFTs from several well-known collections including Mutant Ape, CryptoPunks and others, but continue to frame their services as “leading the way in artistic independence.”

While it is not surprising to see prominent media players looking to monetize and create new IP from and with this new technology, we are starting to see a split in the narrative around the language of Web3 as a result. Intermediaries are emerging, and traditional, established gatekeepers are integrating their legacy IP with newer NFTs, capitalizing on the hype around these tokens. This is all ironic to witness given Web3’s historical focus and vocabulary around direct-to-fan tools and the removal of the “middleman.”

Web3 music activity in India

Last month, we covered Sony’s new India-based metaverse fund, Entertainment Talent Ventures India, and Bengaluru-based AI music app Beatoven. Since then, we’ve seen more Web3-specific music projects and investments in the region:

• Jupiter Meta, an India-based curated NFT marketplace, has announced the launch of music NFTs on their platform. The music NFTs will first be offered during a metaverse concert featuring South Indian singer and composer Karthik.
• Blockfest – a music-meets-blockchain festival – is happening in Kuala Lumpur from September 16–19.

At W&M, we’re mindful that our coverage tends to focus on the US and Western Europe. This is, in part, due to our bias towards following English-language news alerts and trackers; as a result, the vast majority of investments we’re aware of are in English-speaking regions. It’s encouraging to see increased visibility and investment in music/tech around the world, and as our community expands internationally, we will signal-boost and highlight more non-Western Web3 and tech investment activity.

“Shopify for NFTs”

We’re seeing a trend of investments in self-service platforms that bill themselves as the “Shopify for NFTs”:

• Novel, the no-code Web3 commerce platform, raised $6M in its latest seed round, valuing the company at $21M. The platform allows companies, brands, artists or communities to mint and sell NFTs without needing the technical knowledge to do so.
• Berlin-based Fuel has raised $1.7M in a pre-seed round. The company works with brands, artists and labels to mint NFTs and offers users branded NFT shopfronts.

This mirrors a trend we covered in our Season 1.5 report of artists, labels, curators and developers increasingly building their own custom NFT marketplaces on top of wider music NFT protocols — e.g. the likes of Catalog and Artiva building on top of the Zora protocol, and the Solana-based protocol Nina launching a new, composable Hubs curation feature on top of their own NFT marketplace.

It is worth noting that Shopify itself — which commands significant mindshare (if not also market share) in the music merch market at large — also offers the ability for vendors to sell NFTs.

Adaptive and AI music investments

We’ve seen increased investment in adaptive and AI-facilitated music services and tools, including recent rounds for mental health music/sound apps Endel and Soundmind.

• Endel raised $15M in their Series B round this week, including funding from Amazon Alexa Fund, Waverley Capital and True Ventures. The company announced collaborations with James Blake, Grimes and Richie Hawtin. The Berlin-based app uses generative music to create soundscapes intended to help you focus, relax and sleep.
• Soundmind, a mental health-focused app, raised $800K in a round announced this week. Led by New York Ventures and HearstLab, the company will use funds to expand its service that adapts music to the user’s mood.
• TikTok’s parent company ByteDance revealed a new tool for music makers called Mawf that models instruments in real time based on incoming audio and MIDI data.
• Apple acquired UK-based generative music company AI Music back in February.
• We also spotted funding rounds last month for AI music companies LifeScore ($14.5M) and Beatoven ($1M).

All in all, we’ve tracked at least $71.3M in AI and adaptive music investments over the past six months — not including Apple’s acquisition.

There appears to be quite an appetite right now for creative AI and its various uses — not only in music, but also in visual art with developments like Midjourney and OpenAI’s DALL-E 2. Although AI has been powering music consumption and discovery on streaming services for many years, this technology has almost always stayed behind the scenes, nearly invisible to the average artist or music fan.

The recent rise of more overt AI music tools and investments, therefore, may show less trepidation around the technology — on the one hand as a tool to help creative professionals with idea generation, and on the other as a perhaps more efficiency-driven means to circumvent the messier complications that come with using human artistic creations for utility beyond pure entertainment. (That said, as we’ve covered several times at W&M, AI-generated music comes with a whole other separate set of messes, especially when it comes to licensing and ownership.)