The ongoing battle for music rights that presents questions surrounding ethical record labels, fair royalty allocations, and legitimate uses of copyrighted works just got even more interesting. 

On Tuesday, Web3 music startup anotherblock announced it closed a $4 million USD investment round led by UK-based Stride.VC, whose team has also backed early-stage businesses such as Deliveroo, Zoopla, and Daily Motion.

Also participating in the seed round is Axwell, the member and DJ to the internationally acclaimed Swedish House Mafia, who joins fellow SHM member Steve Angello. 

Launched in 2021 by founders Michel D. Traore, Sebastian Ljungberg, and Filip Stromsten, anotherblock is a Stockholm, Sweden-based Web3 music company that comprises a community of music lovers dedicated to building out music rights catalogs. 

By linking music rights to digital collectibles, the startup aims to provide a seamless and user-friendly platform for buying and selling music rights. 

Since closing its $4 million USD seed round, the company is now shifting its focus to scaling up globally and making its products available to a more extensive range of artists, producers, and record companies. 

anotherblock has emphasized its commitment in promoting the democratization of music rights and has granted fans access to streaming rights in worldwide hit songs from artists like The Weeknd (who recently reverted back to his actual name, closing the chapter on his stage name), Rihanna, Martin Garrix, Alan Walker, Offset, and R3HAB. 

“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.

As for the company’s strategy on scalability and shifting towards a more “open marketplace,” anotherblock’s CEO Michel D. Traore, says that its overall goal is to create a model that allows for a wider range of new artists and the fast-growing independent music scene to help fund the careers of new artists. 

“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.” said Traore.

Gabbi Cahane, partner at Stride.VC, emphasized anotherblock’s belief that anyone should be able to own a share of their favorite songs while simultaneously earning royalties just as their favorite artists do.

“This proposition could be a seismic shift for an industry that has traditionally been extremely protective over the ownership of IP. Their artist and fan-centred approach utilises the core technologies and values of Web3 to enable the ownership of a song to be atomised; its ownership to be decentralised; and the balance of power and value capture in the industry to be democratised. They 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,” he added.

As for what’s next, anotherblock also is getting ready to drop the #1 US Billboard Hot 100 Hit from 2006, “This Is Why I’m Hot,” together with MiMs and his two co-producers, DannyBoyStyles and BlackOut, on June 7.

In other news, read about VeeCon 2023 kicking off this week in Indianapolis.