CurrentsFM raises $2.5M to launch Web3 artist-owned distribution networks

Currents.fm. has raised $2.5M in a seed round to build artists-owned content and distribution networks based on web3 protocol.

Digtal events platform Cuurents.fm will use the new funding for its Recurrent Labs division focused on content distribution via artist owned collectives and other networks rather than the current trend of building tools to enable artists-owned content.

Blockchain Capital led the round, joined by Protocol Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko, the founder of Solana, and Backstage Capital. 

Artists  often  receive just 12% of  all  revenue generated  by  their music in the traditional  pay-to-play  gatekeeper  models. Distribution  platforms  which  broadly  include  streaming  services,  social  media  platforms,  festivals, and major labels – take the rest of the cut, usually amounting to almost  90%. 

Distribution DAOs

“Culture is  not a good  or a  service,”  says founder Austin Y Hou,  “It’s a  fundamentally  networked  phenomenon, and  the commodity-based economic models  that we use  to  value  and  reward  music  benefit  the  industry  at  the  expense  of  artists.” 

Rather  than selling songs as NFTs, Recurrent Labs is building a protocol that enables artists  to  form  and  join  collectives  and  provides  tools  for  those  collectives  to  build  lasting, artist-owned distribution power.

Using the blockchain., this will enable listeners to support artists directly but also enable the  platformless  distribution  of  content  at  scale.  It could  also  enable  the  next  evolution  of  decentralized  record  labels  and  streaming  platforms.  “In  a  way,  this  protocol  can  be  thought  of  as  the  infrastructure for a new wave of what we’re calling distribution DAOs,” says Hou. 

Hou and his  team are almost all artists, and  spent  the  pandemic working with  artist  and fan communities in Nairobi,  Taipei,  Berlin,  Cape  Town,  and Oakland. “Our scenes are borderless, and we’re building for ourselves,” says Hou. “This has already led  us  to  make  some  unique  design  choices  in  the  project.  For  example,  we  understand  the  atomic  unit  of  music  as  communities,  not  individuals:  music  creation is inherently a collaborative practice.” 

Recurrent Labs will continue to support communities on the Currents.fm platform,  and  that  the  protocol  will  be  open  to  artists  and  developers around the world, with more details coming in 2022.

Hiring Now

Recurrent  Labs is  a  distributed,  remote-first  team,  and is  hiring  for  open  roles  across web3 engineering, full-stack engineering, operations, and product design. 

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.