News Asia-focused fund blackx partners with Japan’s ASOBISYSTEM to expand J-pop globally Investment firm blackx partners with Japanese talent management company
News LyricFind sues Musixmatch over alleged antitrust violations Musixmatch has called the accusations "meritless"
News Drake’s lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ to go forward as UMG prepares motion to dismiss Lawyers for Drake are also pushing forward a separate case in Texas, alleging 'payola' payments by UMG for playing 'Not Like Us'
News Sphere Entertainment generated $308.3m in Q4, missing earnings forecasts, but promises 2025 will be its ‘best year yet’ The company is forging ahead with a second Sphere in Abu Dhabi, and planning smaller Spheres for a wide range of markets
News Who’s about to buy Suicideboys’ lucrative music publishing catalog ? Rumors abound after Billboard reports that duo's masters could sell for more than $300 million
News ex-Guggenheim exec’s Aquarian Holdings backs new $250m music rights JV with Raven Capital The fund is a joint venture between Raven Capital Management and Aquarian Holdings
News Mercury Records promotes Tyler Arnold to Chairman/CEO and Ben Adelson to President/COO Tyler Arnold signed Post Malone while working as an intern at Republic, while Ben Adelson signed Noah Kahan, James Bay and Stephen Sanchez
News Create Music Group acquires deadmau5 and mau5trap Records catalogs in $55m+ deal The deal also includes the formation of a JV under which Deadmau5 and Mau5trap will release new music via Create
Analysis News YouTube Music hits 125 million subscribers, adding 2m subs per month on average over the past year YouTube added +25 million subscribers over the past 12 months
News Saudi Arabia’s MDLBEAST unveils ‘A Thousand And One’ festival concept featuring electronic music, immersive storytelling The creator of the XP Music Futures conference will host the new festival concept in April in Riyadh.
News AI unicorn Anthropic raises another $3.5bn, boosting valuation to $61.5bn The Series E round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, also an investor in Stability AI and AI music generator Suno
News Superstruct’s UK company revenues jumped 26% to $222m in 2023 – the year before firm was acquired by KKR in a $1.4bn deal Company swung to an operating loss of £33.26 million
News Hazel Savage joins electronic music education platform Syntho as CEO Platform was founded by DJ and producer Josh Baker in 2020
Interviews ‘Our strategy involves pulling every lever possible to maximize an artist’s career.’ MBW's Trailblazers series meets Leander Kirschner, founder and CEO of Berlin-based independent music company Bamboo Artists.
News Duetti raises $200m in debt funding; expands into publishing catalog deals for indie artists and songwriters Company’s total raised to date – including equity financing, debt financing, and asset-backed securities (ABS) sales – comes to $435m
News SM Entertainment to train aspiring K-pop stars in Singapore — for a $10,000 fee The program will include a week-long training stint at SM Universe’s main campus in Seoul
News Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian joins Frank McCourt’s ‘People’s Bid’ to buy TikTok "I've spent my entire career building tech that puts power back in people's hands - that's what got me excited about The People's Bid"
News Adam Holt to retire as MD of Universal Music New Zealand; Myra Hemara and Matt Kidd promoted to Co-MDs Holt has spent a total of 34 years with the company