Music funding platform beatBread raises $34m – Music Business Worldwide

The independent artist sector is growing fast, and an increasing number of firms are giving artists access to capital in the form of advances.

One such company is music funding platform beatBread, which has just completed a $34 million seed round led by Fintech-focused venture capital firm, Deciens Capital.

Deciens Capital was joined by existing and new investors, including Afore Capital, Angel Ventures, IAG Capital Partners, Mucker Capital, Pandeavor Ventures, Octane Lending CEO Jason Guss, Pier Capital, and Westrie Capital.

We wrote about beatBread in August last year, when UnitedMasters partnered with the Utah-headquartered firm to offer qualifying artists advances ranging from $1,000 to $1 million.

BeatBread says that its ChordCash tech engine evaluates artists’ streaming and social data to generate advance offers which – when combined with a “streamlined” verification and documentation process – leads to advance funding landing in artists’ bank accounts within days.

UnitedMasters isn’t the only distribution/services music company to partner with beatBread: the likes of Symphonic Distribution, Horus Music and Indie Amplify have also all recently inked agreements with the company.

Since its launch in November 2020, beatBread says that it has made more than 300 advances to artists and labels “across multiple genres, six continents, and a broad range of career stages”.

BeatBread offers advances ranging from $1,000 to $2 million per artist.

As noted last August, beatBread gets the money to advance artists’ cash from investors looking for returns, with the firm’s website encouraging accredited investors to invest in artists.

BeatBread suggests that this model offers “high growth with high potential yield” for funders.

The firm also reassures investors on its website that its “data science team has has hundreds, sometimes tens of thousands of data points on every artist we fund”.

It adds that “more powerfully, every single artist is compared to a model that includes billions and billions more data points on hundreds of thousands of other artists”.

According to the company, “artists receive funding in exchange for a limited share of existing catalog revenues, with options also available for advances against unreleased music”.

BeatBread says that advances are repaid from a share of an artist’s streaming and airplay revenues, over a period of the artist’s choosing.

Advance agreements leave touring, publishing, synch, and merchandise revenue streams “untouched”, according to beatBread.

“Our mission is to enable artists to access capital on their own terms.”

Peter Sinclair, beatBread

BeatBread CEO Peter Sinclair said: “We are excited to team up with Deciens and other experienced investors to continue to grow and offer more access to flexible capital to more artists.

“This investment will allow us to expand our feature set and will extend the already large capital pool in beatBread’s invite-only Investor Network. In the legacy music industry, artists were forced to sacrifice control of their career and their masters to access growth capital.

“Our mission is to enable artists to access capital on their own terms.”

“beatBread’s next-generation, data-driven platform presents tremendous commercial opportunity because it provides fast, customizable, and transparent funding choices to artists.”

Ishan Sachdev, Deciens

Ishan Sachdev, partner at Deciens, added: “beatBread’s next-generation, data-driven platform presents tremendous commercial opportunity because it provides fast, customizable, and transparent funding choices to artists.

“We look forward to partnering with Co-Founders Peter Sinclair, John Haller, and the impressive beatBread team as the company continues to accelerate and serve its rapidly expanding client list.”Music Business Worldwide