Matt Pincus’ MUSIC has $200M to invest across industry spectrum

Music industry veteran Matt Pincus is ramipng up MUSIC, his holding company making long-term investments across the music business, with a $200 million war chest.

MUSIC is a partnership between Pincus, LionTree, JS Capital Management, and Schusterman Family Investments.

Based in New York, the copmpany will look to take long-term positions in companies operating across three areas of the music business – tech, record labels and music publishers, and companies dedicated to Web3 innovation. As the company’s co-founder and CEO, Pincus will handle capital allocation, investments, and operations on behalf of MUSIC, as well as oversee governance of ongoing investments.

Since its founding, MUSIC has invested in the creation and collaboration platform Splice, music financial services company HIFI, ticketing platform DICE, and others. Pincus is currently a member of the board of directors of Splice and HIFI.

“Institutional investors have been flocking to music because of the uncorrelated returns and strong growth the industry provides. But for most investors, music is just another asset that fits in their portfolio,” says Pincus. “At MUSIC, we invest in talent, creativity, repertoire and innovation. Good people reside all across the capital stack – from venture to growth to private equity to yield. To make the right investments in music, you need to bet on talent with flexible capital, ready for the long term.”

Previously, Pincus founded the independent music publishing company SONGS which handled the songwriting careers of The Weeknd, Diplo, Lorde, DJ Mustard and others, SONGS was acquired by Kobalt Capital in 2017 for a reported $160 million.

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.