Snoop Dogg and a16z Join $20 Million Funding Round for Web3 Music Platform Sound

Web3 music platform Sound has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and American rapper Snoop Dogg.

Actor Ashton Kutcher-led firm Sound Ventures and artist and producer Ryan Tedder also participated in the funding round.

Sound aims to help music artists by removing intermediaries and connecting them directly to fans through blockchain. 

The Web3 music platform is allowing music creators to mint their songs on-chain as a non-fungible token (NFT) and sell them directly to their fans.

Sound claims to have already generated $5.5 million for creators through direct music sales as NFTs since its beta launch in 2022.

Sound Gets Support From Artists 

The latest funding round of Sound comes after its $5 million seed round in 2021.

The legendary rapper and NFT enthusiast Snoop Dogg had previously shared his concerns about the current music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.

The musician had complained that the artists don’t get enough money as compared to the numbers their tracks achieve on these streaming platforms. 

Now the famous rapper himself has invested in a blockchain-based platform that aims to eliminate intermediaries like streaming platforms from the artists’ way. 

Atlanta-based rapper 21 Savage is also among the investors in the Web3 music platform.

As per the announcement, the music company will spend the new funds on artist relations, marketing, and engineering teams, as it gears up to open to the public.

Sound To Take on Music Streaming Giants

David Greenstein, co-founder of Sound, said that as music subscription services have emerged in the recent past, they have expanded access to songs while diminishing artists’ earnings at the same time, CoinDesk reported. 

Artists on Spotify receive roughly $0.003 per stream, Greenstein added. 

He further explained how Web3 helps facilitate direct payments for the songs by allowing music creators to eliminate the middleman and keep 100% of their revenue. 

Artists can utilize Ethereum and layer two scaling solution Optimism to upload their songs, mint them on-chain and sell them for ETH. This process can be done without requiring fans to create a wallet by supporting fiat payments, he added.

Several artists are already embracing the new shift in the music industry by releasing their songs as NFTs. 

Earlier this year, Web3 music platform Anotherblock turned one of Rihana’s songs into a fractionalized NFT.