Music-investment platform, Sonomo, has announced a new partnership with embedded-finance leader, Weavr. The agreement will make it easier for individuals to invest and generate revenues from the music they love.

Music streaming continues to grow significantly around the world, with global revenues in the sector expected to hit $131bn by 2030 [1]. Now, Amsterdam-based Sonomo is opening this market up to new players. With Weavr’s assistance, the company is helping to democratise a new asset class for investors across Europe and the UK and starting to unlock retail capital for the music industry.

At its core, Sonomo represents a financial exchange for music rights, connecting labels and artists with investors. For as little as €10, users of the music investment platform can invest in songs they believe in. This innovative approach offers customers the potential to make outsized returns on a song should it become popular. As such, the income-generating, non-inflationary asset class represents an attractive alternative opportunity for both experienced, and new capital investors.

To offer its service to customers in the most frictionless, user-friendly manner, Sonomo needed assistance from embedded-finance specialist Weavr. The London-based company powers the embedded digital wallet used in Sonomo’s application through its industry-leading Plug-and-Play Finance solution. As such, Weavr enables Sonomo to facilitate the exchange of funds between traders within its platform and also makes it possible for real-time distributions of artist and investor royalty dividends to happen in a secure manner.

Unlike some modern investment options, such as cryptocurrency and NFTs, Sonomo offers an asset class that is well understood by the general populace. A song's share price on Sonomo typically follows its streaming trend-line. This arrangement greatly benefits artists and songwriters by enabling them to collect cash up front by selling a share of future revenues. What’s more, by selling a portion of their song to investors, artists are essentially creating a bespoke "marketing team" incentivised to promote their music.

Sonomo creates diverse income streams for investors based on future revenues derived from master royalties. With Weavr’s support, these investments can happen in real-time and incur minimal transaction costs. Similarly, Weavr’s powerful solution assists Sonomo’s automated royalty collection, accounting, and distribution engine, which allows players within the music industry to completely streamline financial operations – leading to significant savings amongst smaller players. 

Faris Zaher, Founder and CEO of Sonomo said: “Music is widely understood and has outperformed other asset classes over the past decade. Our partnership with Weavr allows us to make music investing a reality for everyone and level the playing field for creators.”

Alex Mifsud, co-founder and CEO at Weavr, commented: "Weavr exists to bring the value multiplier effect of financial services into every digital sector. The entertainment industry is complex and fragmented when it comes to the movement of funds, distribution of royalties and opportunities to invest. It’s also an industry for which digitisation has been bittersweet at best; as musical events moved online, downloads became streams, and ownership for artists became infinitely more difficult.

“We’re pleased to partner with Sonomo to bring much needed value to musicians as they navigate the digitisation of the music industry.”