Music financing platform Duetti has built itself on the idea that music rights acquisitions aren’t just for A-list artists with a large back catalog – they can be made to work for relatively new indie artists as well.
In the roughly 18 months since it was founded by Lior Tibon, former COO of Tidal and now Duetti’s CEO, and Christopher Nolte, a former Business Development executive at Apple Music, the company has partnered with more than 250 indie artists, including Olivia O’Brien, Sevyn Streeter and Łaszewo.
Now Duetti announced it has raised USD $90 million in new funding, including $15 million in new equity and a $75 million credit facility.
The equity financing was led by Nyca Partners, with participation from Viola Ventures, Duetti’s lead seed equity investor, and Cohen Circle.
The credit facility comes from Northleaf Capital Partners, a private markets investment firm known for its investments in music, such as a strategic partnership with Lyric Capital Group in 2021 and its subsequent sales of asset-backed securities supported by music rights.
The new funding “will support accelerated growth of Duetti’s catalog acquisitions, development of proprietary advanced prediction and analytics technology, and expansion of unique catalog marketing capabilities,” the company said in a statement on Thursday (February 15).
Duetti describes its business model as “democratizing the music business by enabling catalog monetization for independent artists,” which in turn enables those artists to “pursue their professional or personal aspirations.”
Duetti, in turn, expands the monetization of those catalogs through various strategies such as adding them to playlists and teaming up with influencers. The company will then buy rights to additional songs from artists that it has already partnered with.
It looks for artists who have been on streaming platforms for a minimum of two years, and clocked at least 500,000 streams in the prior year. It offers “a wide range of financial options,” with deals ranging between $10,000 and $2 million.
“At Duetti, we are dedicated to making the industry more transparent and unlocking new opportunities for independent artists who are normally overlooked by the investment community and the more traditional label system.”
Lior Tibon, Duetti
The company is counting on the continued rapid growth of the indie music segment. In July 2022, Duetti raised $7 million in a seed funding round, and followed that up with a $32-million funding round in the spring of 2023, which included Roc Nation, Viola Ventures and Viola Credit, Untitled and Presight Capital.
The company recently opened offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami.
“The music industry has evolved, and independent artists are bucking tradition and approaching their careers in new, savvy ways,” Tibon said in a statement.
“At Duetti, we are dedicated to making the industry more transparent and unlocking new opportunities for independent artists who are normally overlooked by the investment community and the more traditional label system.”
“Northleaf is delighted to partner with Duetti to support the company’s continued growth, leveraging our combined expertise to drive industry-transforming opportunities for artists and investors alike,” said CJ Wei, Director at Northleaf.
”Their innovative systems and operational processes are impressive and we believe they are well-positioned for ongoing success.”
Jeremy Solomon, a Partner at Nyca, added that “the company’s data-forward approach combined with its partner-centric model puts Duetti in a position to become a critical and scaled player in the music investment space.”
“The company’s data-forward approach combined with its partner-centric model puts Duetti in a position to become a critical and scaled player in the music investment space.”
Jeremy Solomon, Nyca Partners
In December, Duetti released its first-ever music economics report, which found – among other things – that Spotify paid indie artists 8% less in 2023 than it did the previous year, even as Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube increased their payout rates to indie artists. The top four platforms – Spotify, Apple, YouTube and Amazon – generate 96% of streaming income for indie artists, the report said.
It also found that indie Latin artists make nearly 70% less per stream than Country artists, and that a typical indie artist would need 5 million streams annually to earn the US federal minimum wage.Music Business Worldwide