Photo Credit: Mogul<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
SoundCloud exec-founded royalty platform Mogul raises $5 million in a new round of funding led by the Yamaha Music Innovations Fund.<\/h2>\n
Mogul, a platform for artists to track their income and royalties, has announced<\/a> raising $5 million in a new round of funding led by the Yamaha Music Innovations Fund. The company, founded by former SoundCloud execs Jeff Ponchick and Joey Mason, also announced that it has helped artists track over $1.5 billion in lost royalties since its launch last year.<\/p>\n The funding round also included participation from the Urban Innovation Fund, Mindset Ventures, and Fairway Capital Partners, alongside existing investors Amplify L.A. and Wonder Ventures. To date, the company has raised<\/a> over $6.3 million in funding.<\/p>\n \u201cA universal source of truth for music royalties has long been the industry\u2019s holy grail,\u201d said Ponchick. \u201cInstead of forcing a top-down solution, trying to wrangle labels, publishers, CMOs, and others, Mogul starts at the data itself by bringing together the fragmented metadata that determines payouts and turning it into a clear, actionable view of an artist\u2019s income, with tools to surface and resolve issues fast.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, SoundExchange is an entity that collects royalties for digital performance for when your music gets played on SiriusXM,\u201d Ponchick explained to TechCrunch. \u201cIf your SoundExchange is linked, well say, \u2018hey, we see you distributed these songs through DistroKid to Spotify; half of them are not in your SoundExchange account.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n If there is missing information, Ponchick says the tool can prompt the user and then complete the registration on their behalf. There\u2019s even a bulk registration option to add large quantities of data in one go. According to Ponchick, artists have on average seen a 20% increase in their royalty revenues through Mogul.<\/p>\n \u201cMogul is addressing one of the largest structural inefficiencies in the creator economy: fragmented data across royalties, revenues, and payments,\u201d added Andrew Kahn, Managing Partner at Yamaha. \u201cBy aggregating hundreds of sources into a unified platform, they\u2019re shrinking the tech stack for creators while unlocking faster, more accurate compensation. This combination of broad applicability and deep product execution creates defensibility, and while music is the most visible entry point, the opportunity extends well beyond it.\u201d<\/p>\n Mogul also recently added a catalog valuation tool that can estimate an artist\u2019s catalog value across both recording and publishing. While the platform hasn\u2019t yet decided how to tackle the question of AI-generated music for tracking purposes, Ponchick says it\u2019s something being discussed; however, he noted that fully AI-generated music \u201cmight face scrutiny on certain platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n The company currently counts six people on its staff, with plans to grow the team with the new funds.<\/p>\nSince its debut last year, Mogul has already evolved<\/a>. Initially, the platform only provided users with a list of recommendations, but Mogul now offers more actionable information. This includes better formats for lists, as well as cross-platform corrections.<\/h4>\n
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