John Legend co-founded Our Happy Company has discontinued its ‘flagship product.’ Photo Credit: Andrey Metelev
Less than three years after scoring a $7.5 million seed round, John Legend’s Our Happy Company has shelved its core product.
The far-from-ideal development seemingly surfaced in or around October but has received decidedly little industry coverage thus far. At the top level, that’s undoubtedly due to the quick-moving music sector’s steady stream of funding announcements and acquisitions.
In general, those headlines command a significant share of the media spotlight – leaving little room for updates about where existing players stand. But thanks to DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker, it’s easier than ever to check in on startups, many of which would perhaps be forgotten if they weren’t featured in the comprehensive database.
Enter Singapore- and LA-based Our Happy Company, which unveiled the initially mentioned $7.5 million seed round in April 2022, when the NFT craze was in full swing.
Led by Infinity Ventures Crypto and Animoca Brands, the raise would fund the expansion of Our Happy Company’s “flagship product,” OurSong, execs said at the time. Chief among these execs was John Legend, who co-founded the company and served as chief impact officer.
Billed as “a mobile NFT platform designed to give creators…a more equitable way to generate digital creations,” OurSong pulled its app in mid-October and ceased operating altogether on November 30th, 2024, however.
“Due to the termination of the payment processing services provided by Circle, which OurSong previously used, OurSong will be transforming its business model and temporarily suspending services,” the company communicated in a notice posted to its website.
DMN reached out to OurSong support as well as a company rep for comment but only received a response (in the form of an automated email) from the former.
Not nearly as enthusiastic as the temporary-shutdown message posted on OurSong’s website, this automated follow-up provided withdrawal details for customers and confirmed that the entity had “ceased all operations.”
Furthermore, other evidence suggests that OurSong’s shutdown might be closer to permanent than temporary. Around the same time that the NFT platform went dark, multiple Our Happy Company execs and co-founders signaled on LinkedIn that they’d exited the business.
Those co-founders include Kyle Wang (who doubled as chief product officer) and Terence Leong (who in January 2024 co-founded a different startup, Song Protocol), to name a couple.
(Although named as an Our Happy Company co-founder in the entity’s 2022 funding announcement, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin makes no mention of the role in his own LinkedIn experience section.)
Per its LinkedIn profile, Song Protocol is currently “building a new musiconomy for the AI era as the world’s first music-focused L3 blockchain.”
Meanwhile, according to its X description, OurSong is associated with Song Protocol. And far from solely dealing in NFTs, OurSong currently specializes in pre-cleared beats, distribution, and more, the same description shows.