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Founders Fund and Paradigm are leading an investment that aims to fuse music rights with NFT in a platform called Royal, which would allow users to buy shares of songs through the company’s marketplace.
The buyers would earn royalties as the music gains popularity.
EDM artist Justin Blau who performs under the name 3LAU, and JD Ross, a co-founder of home-buying startup Opendoor would lead the venture.
Blau is launching several upstart efforts aimed at exploring how musicians can monetize their work through crypto markets.
Blau dug into NFTs full-time as COVID cut off his ability to tour.
In March, Blau sold a batch of custom songs and custom artwork for a collective $11.7 million worth of cryptocurrency.
Royal’s announcement comes just investors dumped hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies into community NFT projects like CryptoPunks and Bored Apes.
While platforms have to simplify the process of monetizing visual art, there have been fewer efforts focused on musicians.
Paradigm and Founders Fund is leading a $16 million seed round in Royal, with participation from Atomic — where Ross was recently a general partner. Ross’s fellow Opendoor co-founder Keith Rabois led the deal for Founders Fund.
The company will be leveraging Blau’s music and position inside the music industry to attract investors to the platform.
