Rapidly expanding Swedish web3 music company anotherblock has raised a €4 million Seed round led by UK-based Stride.VC and joined by DJ and producer Axwell of Swedish House Mafia.
During the past year, the Stockholm-based startup made significant strides by granting fans access to music rights to some of the world’s biggest songs. Now, the company aims to scale up globally and make its product available to a more extensive range of artists, producers, and record companies.
Since its launch in August 2022, anotherblock has become a prominent player in the international music/web3 scene with their blockchain-based marketplace. The company is committed to promoting the democratization of music rights and has granted fans access to streaming rights for worldwide hit songs from artists like The Weeknd, Rihanna, Martin Garrix, Alan Walker, Offset, and R3HAB.
“anotherblock is reinventing the user experience of music ownership. They have a very clear belief that anyone should be able to own a share of their favorite songs and earn royalties alongside their favorite artists. This proposition could be a seismic shift for an industry that has traditionally been extremely protective over the ownership of IP.”, says Gabbi Cahane, partner at Stride.VC.
The investor highlights the fact that anotherblock’s artist and fan-centered approach utilizes the core technologies and values of Web3 to enable the ownership of a song to be atomized; its ownership to be decentralized; and the balance of power and value capture in the industry to be democratized. “anotherblock have the potential to build the platform that opens up liquidity, transparency and equity in the music economy and go on to power the market for music rights globally.”, added Cahane
“I have followed anotherblock since the beginning, and it is clear that their work aligns with their vision. Enabling greater rights flexibility is the future of the music industry. It creates a whole new freedom for creators to share the financial incentives with fans, which are the most important thing we have.”, said Axwell.
anotherblock also revealed that its strategy will now focus on scalability and a shift towards a more open marketplace. The goal is to create a model that allows a wider range of new artists and the fast-growing independent scene to benefit from the platform to fund their careers and engage their communities.
“Our primary focus in the first year was to educate and prove our product, but going forward, it’s about reaching an even wider audience, particularly outside of the crypto space, and enabling even more creators to get involved. The blockchain ecosystem currently boasts more active users and greater opportunities to engage them than ever before, opening up endless possibilities for the combination of music rights and technology. Having world-class backers on board for this journey is extremely valuable.”, says Michel D. Traore, CEO and co-founder of anotherblock.
