Last month, data-driven A&R startup Instrumental announced that Tencent Music and Tencent Holdings had acquired a minority stake in the British company. Now it’s launching a new initiative in its homeland called the ‘Instrumental Music Fund’, with £10m to invest in independent artists that have been talent-spotted using its technology.
“For some time, we have known our tech was a window into the fastest-growing independent artists on the planet and this facility will now allow us to support that talent financially as well as strategically,” said CEO Conrad Withey.
This isn’t necessarily Tencent’s cash being spent, mind: Instrumental is working with a company called BCI Finance, which describes its business as providing “disruptive tech-enabled lenders with the capital they need to scale”. Instrumental is now getting to work identifying artists who might be ripe for investment, with plans to offer them services including marketing, playlist pitching, PR and radio plugging.
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