SongVest is the world’s first music marketplace where fans become investors by purchasing fractional shares of music royalties. Here’s how the revolutionary service works for everyone involved.
The following was created in collaboration with SongVest, a company DMN is proud to be partnered with.
Artists create a new level of fandom with invested fans by allowing them to purchase a percentage of their royalties via SongShares. Artists and other music rights holders can package any type of royalty stream, such as a percentage of sound recordings, writer’s share, or publishing in individual songs or catalogs, and offer them to fans as the ultimate memorabilia and investment. In addition, Artists have the option to include utility like special access, exclusive merch, and other perks only for SongShare owners that go beyond just the investment.
SongVest believes that these invested fans will become an integral part of the music ecosystem. “Companies IPO regardless of whether they need the capital. There’s value in having stock traded. We believe it will also become ubiquitous in the music industry that Artists will want to IPO their music to fans” said Sean Peace, CEO of SongVest.
These invested fans are not fickle like superfans can be, they have long term investments that can last 20 years to life of copyright depending on what the Artist chooses. Through utility associated with the SongShares or through direct engagement with these invested fans, Artists can utilize them as a marketing street team around new drops, selling concert tickets, limited-edition merch, vinyl or access to special events.
SongVest Founder and CEO Sean Peace remarked, “The recent success with hitmaker and Onyx-founder Fredro Starr on SongVest proves that the model works. Not only can SongVest offer SEC qualified SongShares, we can scale and unlock SongShares for all rights holders. This serves the Artist’s need to engage their fans and unlocks revenue.”
How SongVest Works for Fans and Investors
SongShares are the only regulation A+ SEC qualified offering that allows fractional ownership of music royalties, opening this alternative asset class to the general public. This royalty investment platform differs from NFT platforms because every offer is submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission who qualifies the offering, allowing the issuance of the SongShare securities. Any earned royalties are collected and paid out quarterly to investors.
Sara Hanks, co-founder and CEO of CrowdCheck, is an attorney with over 30 years of experience in the corporate and securities field. She says, “The sort of offering that SongVest makes is very different from some of the crypto and NFT offerings that we are hearing so much about at the moment. SongVest is issuing royalty interests in accordance with securities laws. They are required to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, who reviews those filings with a view to making sure that investors have the information they need to make an informed investment decision. Having interests represented by NFTs doesn’t change the fact that the important issue is whether the offering complies with securities laws.”
Fans can browse the SongVest website to see which SongShares are most interesting to them. After finding an offering they want, fans place bids to reserve SongShares or purchase them from any available public offerings. Once SongShares are purchased, fans can track their music royalty portfolio in the SongVest dashboard as well as their royalty payments.
Flexibility for Rights Holders
SongVest aims to shake up the old model of selling 100% of a catalog to just one investor. Rights holders now have ultimate flexibility by selling any percentage of any song from any royalty stream and tailor that to fans and music investors. SongVest also offers an auction model that allows the share price to increase based on fan demand to maximize revenue potential.
This approach has a couple of different benefits for rights holders. For starters, artists are selling to investors who already love their music, which turns fans into invested fans. It helps artists, songwriters, record labels, publishers, and other rights holders unlock cash flow and fund growth. The other benefit is the ease of the transaction because SongVest utilizes letters of direction (LOD’s). Because the Artist isn’t selling the whole catalog along with all of the underlying rights, SongVest doesn’t have all of the overhead, due diligence and legal costs associated with that type of transaction.
SongVest starts by working with the rights holder to understand what they want to accomplish. Is it just raising capital, fan engagement, promoting new music, or all of the above? Once the rights holder and SongVest agree on the goals, SongVest runs an analysis of the current music royalties and the rights holder’s fanbase to produce a proposal. Once agreed, SongVest and the rights holder will work together on joint marketing of the offering to maximize fan and investor engagement.
Interested in engaging your fans with SongShares? Contact SongVest today for a free analysis.
SongVest Success Stories
With the success of Onyx-founder Fredro Starr’s campaign, SongVest is poised for growth and ready to offer SongShares at scale. Not only were 100% of Fredro’s SongShares reserved but SongVest also continued to prove out the auction model where the share price increased based on investor demand.
SongVest worked directly with Fredro Starr to develop a marketing plan that engaged Onyx fans on social media. Various social media posts and videos helped directly market to active fans that allowed all 430 SongShares to be reserved quickly. “SongVest is the new wave. Now my supporters can ride with me. It’s a great investment! Music shares only go up!” adds Fredro Starr, Co-Founder of Onyx.