The Independent Music Sector is Investing. And We Love to See It!
Mapping indie label investments this year
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An important music industry headline last week:
A collective of indie record labels invested $250k in Cantilever, a curated music streaming platform.
The indie labels involved:
SubPop, Domino, NinjaTune, Secretly Group, City Slang, Secret City, Because, Partisan, Hopeless, Everlasting, Exceleration, !K7 and Playground.
As someone who writes a lot about music investment, this is rare! Music tech funding is usually dominated by venture capital and major labels. You hardly ever see indie labels on these funding announcements.
I love to see this. The independent sector should be investing and shaping the music infrastructure of the future. While it’s rare, I have noticed signs of indies getting more active. So this week, we’re mapping out some recent exciting independent investments.
Collective investing
One thing you’ll notice is that independents often invest via collectives.
They come together in groups to pool their capital and resources. For example, the Cantilever investment was orchestrated during a meeting of ORCA associated labels (ORCA is the Organisation for Recorded Culture and Arts).
Another active investor is Futures Music, which is a collective formed by Neon Gold Records and Avenue A Records. They’ve invested in Splice, Indify, and ITM.
Or Secretly Group, one of the biggest independent music groups formed of record labels like Jagjaguwar, Secretly Canadian and Dead Oceans. It has made recent acquisitions from its distribution arm, and strategic co-investments with other label groups like Beggars.
Independent labels and organisations have more power and leverage when they work together. It’s often the only way they can compete with the big pockets of venture capital and major labels.
Balancing out the big money
We’ve written a lot about how money flows in the music industry. Major labels have spent the last decade growing their investment in music’s core infrastructure. They have large stakes in Spotify, acquired several large music distributors, and increasingly invest in early-stage music tech tools and products.
Music’s most disruptive new products like Suno, are largely funded by generalist tech funds in Silicon Valley.
None of this is necessarily bad. But the music industry does need balance.
The independent sector now represents almost 50% of global recorded music share. It makes sense that indies should also have ownership and stakes in music’s core infrastructure and shape its future products.
Recent independent investment + acquisition activity
Below we’ll list some recent independent investments. This is not exhaustive and feel free to comment or email me if I’ve missed some.
1. Futures Music raises $6 million
Futures Music is a collective of labels including Neon Gold Records. Recently the group raised $6 million to invest in both artists and music technology. They own stakes in Splice, Indify, Chordal, and more recently ITM — a live events infrastructure platform.
2. Secretly Distribution acquires BabelOps and Ei
The distribution arm of Secretly Group (home to Secretly Canadian, Ghostly Internation, Jagjaguwar and Dead Oceans) recently acquired BabelOps, independent data infrastructure for more than 55,000 record labels.
3. Cantilever raises $250k pre-seed
The curated streaming platform raised its first capital from a group of 20 independent record labels, orchestrated by ORCA, a think tank for the independent sector.
4. Merlin and Jamen Capital acquire Curve
When Universal Music bought Downtown Music earlier this year, the courts forced them to divest one of their holdings, Curve Royalty Systems. Last week it was announced that Curve had been acquired by two independent organisations: Merlin and Jamen Capital. Merlin is one of the biggest independents orgs, representing about 15% of global recorded music, and Jamen Capital aims to be the “largest funder of independent music globally” via its $200 million Pipeline financing platform.
5. Concord acquires Stem Distribution
Concord is one of the largest independent music companies with a lot more capital to make meaningful investments and acquisitions. In 2025, they acquired music distributor Stem and invested in Tone, the royalty accounting platform spun out of Stem.
6. Believe acquires Sentric Music Group
Believe acquired Tunecore back in 2016, followed by another 16 smaller acquisitions over the coming years. More recently it acquired publishing rights management platform Sentric Music Group.
7. Jukebox launches VC firm
Independent music PR company Jukebox recently announced a venture capital arm and raised $15 million to invest in new music tech.
8. Red Light Management & ThreeSixZero
Some of the large independent music management companies are also getting active in the early-stage venture department. Red Light Management has invested in Komi, Stationhead, Afterparty and Mixhalo. ThreeSixZero is invested in Hook and Maestro. Another example is LVRN, a creative agency with investments in Laylo and Symphony Distribution.
9. Independent music collectives
Hubs like London’s AEI often back local startups and music companies (UKF, SubSoul, several studios and live event companies). Another example is Tileyard, a community of local London music startups.
Thanks for reading
If you found this useful, please do forward it to your colleagues or share with your friends. If you have questions or thoughts, reach out to me on LinkedIn or by email at benjamin@stvdio.io. See you next week with another music industry report.
Interested in your thoughts on the Concord/BMG merger and whether they are now a 4th major?
Gah that’s so interesting, really want to look into this later! 🖤