The pandemic has highlighted many issues within the music industry and has accelerated a ton of change to empower artists, driven primarily by Web3 innovations like NFTs that give artists unprecedented control over their relationships with fans and their revenue streams.
New venture capital incubator Verswire, launched today and co-founded by Veeps founder and COO Sherry Saeedi, blink-182 founding member Mark Hoppus, and Lippman Entertainment Partner Nick Lippman, may not be Web3 based, but it is aiming to disrupt the music industry all the same. In addition to the industry veterans at the helm of the company, Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz will also be serving as strategic advisor.
Verswire will work to address the issues inherent in the traditional music industry and will treat artists as entrepreneurs, providing them with custom investments accordingly. Investments will include funding, resources, mentoring, brand partnerships, marketing, and more. Importantly, Verswire’s arrangements will allow artists to keep majority ownership of their masters, which many record label deals do not — something that has been highly publicized thanks to Taylor Swift’s decision to re-record her old albums.
“The countless tech solutions that allow artists to make extra money have merely been a bandaid, while no one has fixed the root of the problem: that unfavorable deals do not allow artists to make money or own their music […] I decided to build Verswire with an incredible team to re-envision the industry and provide musicians with an alternative that’s truly created with their well-being and careers as the priority,” said Verswire CEO & Founder Sherry Saeedi in a statement.
Verswire’s first signing, rock trio Beauty School Dropout, have also released their first single, “Assassin,” today, along with the accompanying music video. The group was personally mentored by Hoppus, who also appears in the music video. Verswire promises to be an exciting and much-needed development in the world of music and will hopefully help support many more artists moving forward with its tailored investment approach.
“The artist and label relationship needs to be a symbiotic partnership in order to garner absolute success,” added Verswire Partner Nick Lippman. “Verswire is the culmination of this ideology and something I’m proud to be a part of.”