The NFT music rights startup Royal has received another round of funding, raking in $55 million from venture capital piggybank Andreessen Horowitz.
That infusion is on top of the $16 million in seed money it received from Founders Fund and Paradigm three months ago.
As reported by TechCrunch, Royal will work with musicians to allow users to buy non-fungible tokens that represent collective ownership in an artist’s work, opening the possibility of earning royalties from the song.
Artists can also sell “fan experiences,” which likely means meet-and-greets and concert tickets.
In the company’s recent early access contest, users got a chance to win royalties from the EDM artist 3LAU’s recent track “Worst Case.”
3LAU, whose real name is Justin Blau, is overseeing Royal alongside JD Ross, a co-founder of home-buying startup Opendoor.
When NFTS first started becoming a thing earlier this year, the initial attention was on the cryptocurrency’s impact on gaming and the visual art world.
NFTS are now starting to become popular in the music world as well.
Bored Ape Yacht Club collective, recently partnered with the producer Timbaland and Universal Music Group Projects, threw a party with Beck and The Strokes for their “Ape Fest 2021” crypto-festival.
At the moment there’s no word on who else Royal has partnered with, but the website says, “Stay tuned for our first live drop coming soon!”
Still, the obvious questions remains: Could Royal ever work to selling NFTs for Lorde? Or would that violate her famous “no royals” policy?
