Want to Fund Someone? Fund an Emerging Artist

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There’s apparently a new way to invest in the music industry: finance concerts and recordings by emerging artists.

Instead of having go through major record labels in order to secure gains, The Unison Fund, a brand-new investment fund, aims to help financial investors with the purpose of financing tours by up-and-coming artists looking for a shot at the mainstream.  Not to be confused with the Unison Benevolent Fund, a non-profit charity that provides emergency services and counseling for the Canadian music industry, the Unison Fund is also looking to fund videos, album production, and other emerging artist undertakings.

With opportunities seeming to dwindle in the music industry for new artists due to the recent news of a possible SoundCloud sale and Guvera’s bad-to-worse train wreck in Australia and India, The Unison Fund comes as a relief both for investors and artists.  Investors are weary of investing in record labels due to the fact that, even though streaming music revenue is seeing a huge rise in the music industry as a whole, global music sales as a whole have gone down 60% according to The Wall Street Journal.  According to WSJ, The Unison Fund “has secured $25 million in commitments from investors,” which will be invested not only for music concerts this summer but in the next several years.

The group also wants to raise $250 million more in funding from “wealthy individuals —preferably with experience or connections in the music industry.”

In good news for artists who may receive funding from The Unison Fund, they’ll be allowed more freedom and ownership over their own recorded music, instead of having to hand over a large chunk of revenue they earn through licensing, merchandising, and marketing.  The same group also plans to have investors partake in the revenue the artists earn.

Monopoly Euro money image by Mathias Pastwa, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC by 2.0).