Seoul, South Korea. Photo Credit: Mathew Schwartz
Now billing itself as “Asia’s largest music IP investment firm,” Seoul-headquartered Beyond Music has announced the completion of an approximately $170 million strategic fundraising round.
Beyond Music, not to be confused with the Tina Turner-founded musician community of the same name, emailed Digital Music News about the roughly $170 million tranche today. Having now raised a total of about $400 million since arriving on the scene in 2021, the South Korean company indicated that existing backer Praxis Capital, “joined in tandem by several of the largest LPs in Asia,” led this newest round.
“Praxis Capital is well known for its successful track record in the content industry, and brings to the table not just capital, but ‘smart capital’ that delivers insight and shared vision,” said Beyond Music head Jangwon Lee, who’s also the founder and CEO of Contents Technologies.
Predictably, Beyond Music – which says it’s spearheaded north of 70 music IP buyouts and possesses the rights to some 27,000 tracks – intends to put the cash towards scooping up additional catalogs yet. “The capital secured from this funding round will be used to acquire rights to evergreen songs and further establish the firm’s financial strength and deal-closing ability for music rights holders,” higher-ups made clear.
Though Beyond has finalized multiple stateside investments as of late, execs pointed specifically to a desire to enhance their business’s “role as the largest and most active capital provider within the Asian music industry.” And on this front, the owner of Interpark Music’s assets took the opportunity to tout the perceived effectiveness of its “‘buy and build’ business model.”
The model involves purchasing “large-scale, high-quality music catalogs” before “revitalizing” the involved works via “proactive value enhancement strategies such as remakes, performance marketing and industry partnerships.” Jung In-ho’s “Heyo” (2001), for instance, is said to have made a commercial splash after Beyond released a “fresh interpretation” last year – with the corresponding streams reaching the newer iteration and the original track alike.
Addressing the capital influx, Beyond’s aforementioned CEO highlighted the regional significance of his company’s current IP.
“Home to all-time hits comparable to the Bon Jovis, Led Zepplins and Whitney Houstons of Asia,” said the MAPIA founder Jangwon Lee, “Beyond Music has already established itself as the region’s market leader with the deepest pockets, quantitative disciplines and proven value-up records. Through this investment, we hope to continue our purpose of serving Asia’s most respected artists and their works.”
Last month, Rod Stewart revealed that he’d called off catalog acquisition talks with Hipgnosis, and reports suggested that Universal Music Group was nearing a billion-dollar deal for Queen’s body of work. Meanwhile, Ja Rule is shopping his own catalog – with conditions in place for the potential sale.