We’ve always liked the idea of ‘fantasy music label’ or ‘music stock exchange’ startups, where players discover music and back it (whether through ‘signing’ songs to their virtual label or buying and selling virtual shares in artists and tracks). Popex, Thesixtyone, HitMaker, TastemakerX, Tradiio, Fantasy Music Manager and Laylo are among the examples down the years, although there has yet to be a success story on the scale of the biggest fantasy sports offerings.
Anyway, this is a long-winded intro to another startup that has been plugging away at the idea: FanLabel. It’s an app using the fantasy label dynamic – backed by investment from the three real major labels – and now it is working with B2B firm Tuned Global to bolster its music catalogue.
The deal has seen FanLabel ingest millions of tracks and their metadata, with Tuned also set to report stream usage to labels, publishers and PROs. The partnership accompanied the release of v5.0 of FanLabel’s app, which is available for Android and iOS.
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