News Kobalt Music Group sold to US-based private equity firm Francisco Partners FP will own 90% of Kobalt, say MBW sources, with a minority stake taken by Matt Pincus' new vehicle
News Tencent Music to work with Billboard in bringing Chinese artists to the global stage Tencent Music Entertainment forges alliance with US music media brand Billboard
News The Beatles return North American merchandise rights to Universal’s Bravado Deal reunites legendary band’s merchandise business with their recorded music catalog
News Warner Chappell Music strikes licensing deal with short-form video platform (and TikTok rival) Kuaishou App reports to reach more than 180m monthly active users outside of China
Analysis News Half of APAC listeners use social media for music discovery, a win for TikTok and its music-streaming foray APAC music discovery stats revealed in new report from US market monitor Luminate
News BMG revenues increased 25% to €371m in first half of 2022 BMG reports that 60% of its revenues in the first half of 2022 were from publishing, with 40% from recordings.
Analysis News Utopia is raising €300 million in a Series C round that would value its company at €2.5bn. But what’s it building? A deep dive into one of the most intriguing companies operating around and within the modern music business
News Music startup Soundstripe attracts $9m in fresh funding shortly after launching mobile app Startup provides royalty-free music for video
Analysis News Triller, which has raised $300m to date, is being sued by Sony Music for non-payment of ‘millions of dollars’ Triller just raised more funds, pushed back its IPO (again)... and has been hit by a major lawsuit by SME
News Uncategorized Blockchain music platform Opulous launches fund to buy copyrights The project – or Opulous Royalty Vault – operates via a new set of tokens called OVAULT.
News Kobalt Music Group in talks to sell majority stake to Francisco Partners, say MBW sources Francisco Partners acquired a majority stake in Native Instruments earlier this year
News Ben Katovsky joins Hipgnosis Song Management as President and COO News comes as Hipgnosis reportedly joins race to acquire Pink Floyd's back catalog
News Raoul Chatterjee to exit SoundCloud as VP Content Partnerships and Operations News of Chatterjee's exit follows the company's confirmation earlier this month that it's in the process of reducing its global workforce by approximately 20%
News Eddie Sikazwe promoted to Senior Director of A&R at Secretly Publishing Exec joined Secretly in 2020, after founding the LA-based Abstract Management