Soundxyz raises $5M to help small artists profit from NFTs

Buzz worthy music NFT startup Sound.xyz has raised a $5 million seed round with the goal of helping low and mid level artists profit from crypto, Web 3 and the NFT boom.

Investors include Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z fund, Variant Fund, Atelier Ventures, and musicians already in the crypto space including Holly Herndon, 21 Savage and DJ Drama.

Sound.xyz is not alone in using NFTs both a growth and funding mechanism for artists, but its focus on “smaller” artists does set it apart.

“There’s only 7,800 artists that make over $100,000 or more per year [on Spotify],” Sound.xyz co-founder David Greenstein told Coindesk. “The number for $50,000 or more per year is 13,400. This is before you pay a label, before you pay any bandmates or producers.”

What about all the other artists who upload an average of 70,000 tracks to Spotify every day?

“If we build for the artists who are making a lot of money on Spotify, it’s 7,500,” said Greenstein. “If we go for the artists that aren’t making sustainable careers, we’re dealing with the 99.9%.”

The Sound.xyz pitch

Artists releasing music through Sound.xyz can offer a limited supply of related NFTs.

In short, Sound.xyz encourages fans to be early adopters as well as to help spread the word because they have some ownership in the project and could profit as it grows.

An example:

PUTTING OUT A NEW TRACK SHOULD BE AN EVENT, NOT AN AFTERTHOUGHT. SOUND GIVES ARTISTS THE CHANCE TO DEBUT NEW MUSIC AS A SET OF NFTS. EACH EDITION OF THE NFT IS NUMBERED UNIQUELY, SO LISTENERS CAN SHOWCASE THEIR EARLY SUPPORT.

SINCE EARLY EDITIONS ARE CONSIDERED MORE VALUABLE THAN LATER EDITIONS, BACKERS ARE INCENTIVIZED TO DISCOVER NEW MUSIC EARLY.

More @ Sound.xyz

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.