Sound Royalties Offers Musicians A Funding Alternative

Artist-friendly finance specialists Sound Royalties is pioneering a new way for musicians – d.i.y, indie and major label – to finance their projects.

CEO, Alex Heiche, a Nashville resident and classically trained pianist with a passion for music, founded Sound Royalties in 2014 with the mission of providing creatives with working capital backed by their royalty income, without putting their copyrights at risk.

Sound Royalties advances funding based on the music and its royalty streams, not the person, and never buys or takes possession of a client’s copyrights, even in default.

“We offer an alternative to traditional banking solutions without the need for personal financial statements or tax returns,” said Heiche. “Banks can be constrained by banking regulations that can prohibit them from funding these types of transactions. Sound Royalties strives to be as flexible as possible and build each transaction to fit our customers’ unique needs.”

Sound Royalties uses dynamic pricing based on an analysis of future royalty income to offer advances between $5,000 and $10 million.

Pitbull, Lil Wayne, gospel-jazz musician Ben Tankard, and Latin music star Brenda K. Starr have used Sound Royalties, as has up-and-coming artists like as New Jersey rapper Mesa and soundtrack composer Adonis Tsilimparis.

Mesa has used Sound Royalties on three occasions, putting funds toward new music, video production and income-producing investments. Since the time of his first funding, his streaming numbers have skyrocketed well into the millions. Tsilimparis, who recently moved from New York to L.A., has used advances to relieve debt, buy new equipment and hire an orchestra for a film score. “Good orchestras are expensive,” he said. “It helped save the film.”

Songs are evaluated on five criteria: the song’s age and income-producing history; the income source such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and others; the royalty type, whether publishing or recording copyrights, traditional or streaming; the depth of catalog, whether a single song or many; and genre, since some music categories have a longer shelf life than others. Finally, the length of the deal is factored in. The artist then selects from a range of customized options.