We recently caught up with Mattias Tengblad, the Co-founder and CEO at Corite, a platform that allows artists and their fans to join forces.
Via the Corite platform, people can invest in music they really love and get paid when it’s streamed on Spotify and Apple Music. The company’s founders have explained that Corite is the first platform to “truly enable fans to invest in artists and be a part of the creative journey from the first mix to the creation of potential hit songs.”
The platform aims to support artists so they can “take creative control” of their expression by letting the people that love their music join forces with their favorite acts via a new form of “fan funding” that harnesses the power of blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Our conversation with Mattias Tengblad is shared below.
Crowdfund Insider: You’ve noted that your platform, Corite, allows artists to distribute, market, and fund their next release.
Please walk us through this process and discuss why this would be a better option compared to other alternatives in the market.
Mattias Tengblad: Corite is a unique fan funding, promotion, and distribution platform for independent artists. This is how it works today in three simple steps.
1. The artist sets it up
A campaign typically includes a presentation of the artist and the music, previous success, social following, photos, and a snippet of the music. The artist sets a funding goal, which is the same as deciding a royalty advance on an estimated number of streams. The advance will be funded by fans and repaid by revenue from streaming for one year.
2. Backers get a share
Investors and fans listen to the song and decide to back it with a certain amount of their own money. If the artist believes the song will stream a lot, it means the song has a higher estimated value. A higher estimated value of the song means a higher price for the backer to get a share.
3. All share the success
Songs are released through Corite to all major music services (Spotify, Apple, Amazon, etc). Backers can follow the progress and are incentivized to promote the song. Revenues are shared with backers as they are generated.
We have successfully run corite.com since late 2019. This has given us many important insights that we now bring into the world of blockchain. We believe in the power of fans and communities, which has been one of our biggest focuses since day one. Tapping into blockchain and all the possibilities that come with it will only open up even more opportunities for both artists and fans.
We know that our model works and it is competitive. Now it’s time to add even more value to it! We have an extraordinary team with a unique mix of music- and blockchain experience. In the end, it’s all about execution.
Crowdfund Insider: Your official website says your services are “made for artists” and “ruled by fans.”
Please explain what this means, in detail, and how can consumers benefit from these services?
Mattias Tengblad: The future music industry will be driven by hundreds of thousands of independent artists using the power of fans to grow and sustain their careers. Blockchain technology is the perfect answer to this trend, enabling artists to keep control of their art at higher margins and also create new revenue streams monetizing digital art and music. This is what we call fan power, and this is what will make us unique.
The music industry has the potential to become a truly decentralized economy, run by the creators and the crowd that love and back their favorite creators, as they build value together. This is why we say Corite is made for the artists and ruled by the fans.
Crowdfund Insider: You’ve explained that creating a campaign via your platform requires inviting fans to get support for an artist’s upcoming release.
Then, after this money has been raised, it becomes easier to market music for artists and truly engage their fans. They’re also able to share their success, by getting free distribution and sharing revenue with fans. This sounds quite innovative. How did you come up with this business model?
Mattias Tengblad: Well, me and my co-founding partner Emil are true music lovers and we’ve been working together for many years. We spent five exciting years together at Universal Music at the time Spotify was launched and rocked the industry to its foundation. Since then, the music industry has been growing fast, and competition is fierce among millions of artists.
Three years ago we came up with the Corite concept. The Corite vision is to help the growing number of independent artists with new, innovative solutions to finance and promote their projects, utilizing the fan community to cut through the noise of 60k songs released every day on Spotify and other digital service providers. We are all about fan power.
Crowdfund Insider: You’ve noted that artists can decide the size of their own royalty advance and keep all the rights, which includes distribution. Tell us more about how this works.
Mattias Tengblad: Yes, the artist sets a funding goal as part of the campaign setup, which is the same as deciding a royalty advance based on an estimated number of streams. The advance will be funded by fans and repaid by revenue from streaming for one year.
The artists also decide how much revenue they want to share with their backers during the campaign year for their efforts after the initial payback goal is reached.
Crowdfund Insider: What are your plans moving forward as we head into 2022?
Mattias Tengblad: Corite is already used by tens of thousands of fans and artists. Now in Q4 2021, we are launching the blockchain project CO. CO will enable control, ownership, and new ways to enjoy and live off digital art and music by rewarding activity and engagement. Fans will get song shares by backing the music and earn fan power by making the music a hit.
As a first in the world, we’re bringing Play to Earn to the music industry, where the most engaged artists and fans set the rules and share success together. We are also launching $CO, the native token for the platform. Holders will get early access to invest in music, purchase Corite Original NFTs, and participate in governance. This is the ultimate opportunity to earn a reward for contributing to the platform and the community.
Crowdfund Insider: You’re one of the first NFT communities. Tell us about the benefits of minting and acquiring NFTs.
Mattias Tengblad: Recording music is today’s 21 billion dollar industry, growing at a fast pace. NFTs are a game-changer for the next generation of music artists and fans. It will not only enable new opportunities for artists to monetize music on top of the streaming royalties, today’s main revenue for music recordings, but it will also be a tool that will help artists to build closer relations with their core fans.
NFTs will be a creative playground for collaborations between music artists and other art forms. Exploring audio first NFTs will be an exciting opportunity for creatives going forward. I believe NFTs have the potential to become as important for generation Z as music videos once were during the hay days of MTV in the 90s, and both fans and artists will see it as a great opportunity.