ANote Music raises €2 million to open music royalties to European investors

Luxembourg-based ANote Music wants to make future income from music catalogues tradable. Its challenge is not simply to give retail investors access to a new asset class, but to create the liquidity and transparency still missing from this market in Europe.

A song does not stop creating value after its initial commercial life. Streaming, radio, in-store playback, synchronisation in advertising, films or television series, and videos on social platforms can all generate income for rights holders. These cash flows have long been sought after by labels, publishers and specialist funds. They have, however, largely remained beyond the reach of individual investors.

This is where ANote Music positions itself. Founded in Luxembourg by Marzio F. Schena, Matteo Cernuschi and Grégoire Mathonet, the company operates a marketplace designed to enable music rights holders to sell a share of their future income, while allowing investors to acquire the right to receive royalties.

The platform says it has more than 52,000 user accounts, has listed 36 catalogues covering more than 100,000 songs and has processed over €28 million in cumulative transactions. The catalogues available on the platform include royalties from songs performed by artists such as Beyoncé, Avicii, Justin Bieber, Drake and Martin Garrix.

A rights market, not a song market

While the idea may sound intuitive — buying a share of the income generated by a well-known song — the underlying mechanism is more complex. An investor does not become the owner of the song, the artist or their brand. They acquire a contractual right to a portion of the future income associated with a catalogue.

That income can arise from different types of rights: sound recording rights, publishing rights, copyright, neighbouring rights, public performance or synchronisation. It can also vary by territory, distribution agreement and the duration of the rights being sold.

This complexity explains why the market has long been dominated by private transactions. An artist, songwriter, label or publisher looking to monetise a catalogue will typically turn to a specialist buyer able to analyse historical income, estimate future cash flows and commit several million euros.

ANote wants to introduce a different model: putting buyers into competition through primary auctions, enabling positions to be resold on a secondary market, and automating the distribution of collected royalties.

Streaming has changed the economics of music catalogues

Music catalogues have gained a growing place in alternative-asset portfolios as streaming has made their income streams more regular, more global and easier to track. The sales of catalogues by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Justin Bieber and Queen have illustrated the appetite of major buyers for long-term music income.

The global market for music rights reached $47.2 billion in 2024, according to figures cited by ANote Music, while recorded music alone generated $29.6 billion that year. Streaming subscriptions now account for a dominant share of that market. This growth does not turn every song into an attractive financial asset: income remains concentrated in a minority of tracks, and a catalogue’s value depends on its actual history, its ability to remain relevant to listeners and the quality of the rights attached to it.

Between catalogue funds and fractional-investment platforms

ANote is not entering an empty field. In the institutional market, groups such as Concord, Primary Wave and structures backed by Blackstone and Hipgnosis have far greater financial capacity to acquire complete catalogues. They compete directly for access to the best assets. For a rights holder, a firm offer from a fund may be simpler than an auction or the fractional sale of a catalogue.

In the United States, JKBX has taken a more explicitly financial route, offering retail investors securities backed by royalty income streams under a framework approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The model shows that potential demand exists, but also how difficult it is to make these assets accessible while preserving an appropriate investor-protection and trading framework.

Other players, including Royal, AnotherBlock and SongVest, have sought to combine royalties, blockchain and fan ownership. Some of these projects have run into a structural limitation: affinity with an artist does not, by itself, create a liquid market. An investor may want to own a fraction of a famous track, but resale requires other buyers to be present, at the same time and at the desired price.

Liquidity is the model’s main test

The existence of an order book is not enough to create a stock exchange. To function, a marketplace requires a broad enough supply of catalogues, recurring buyers, standardised information and prices that reflect actual transactions.

With 36 catalogues listed since its launch in 2020, ANote still has a limited supply relative to its European ambitions. Its growth will depend on its ability to persuade more labels, publishers, artists and songwriters to sell part of their rights, including less high-profile catalogues that nonetheless generate recurring income.

The platform will also need to demonstrate that its users are more than registered accounts. The key indicators will be the actual volume traded on the secondary market, the time required to resell a position, the spread between bid and ask prices, the regularity of distributions and the share of professional investors in trading volumes.

This is a familiar challenge for marketplaces, but a more demanding one here. A rights seller needs confidence in the price obtained; a buyer needs visibility on expected returns and a possible exit. Neither side will engage sustainably unless the other is already active.

Democratisation requires investor education

The promise of passive income may appeal to individual investors, but it must be accompanied by clear information about the nature of the assets. A royalty is neither a bond, nor a listed share, nor a guaranteed savings product. Its value may be affected by changing listening patterns, changes in platform remuneration, new uses, fees or dependence on a small number of high-performing tracks.

The rise of generative AI adds another variable. In the short term, it may increase the need for traceability, rights management and oversight of how works are used. In the longer term, it may alter the abundance of music supply, listening behaviour and the balance of power between creators, platforms and rights holders. On streaming platforms, the influx of AI-generated tracks is already raising questions about the visibility of works and income distribution, as shown by the rapid growth of AI-generated music supply.

This extends older debates about the use of voices, works and music data by AI models. Regulating AI in music is therefore becoming a direct issue for the future value of catalogues and for rights holders.

Regulation will also be a decisive issue. ANote Music states that it is not supervised by Luxembourg’s financial regulator, on the basis that its activity concerns contractual and intellectual-property rights rather than financial instruments. This distinction nonetheless requires investors to understand what they are acquiring, how those rights are held and what protections apply to each transaction.

The challenge, then, is not merely to open a new asset class to a broader audience. It is to make it sufficiently transparent, comparable and liquid so that it does not remain reserved for a minority of insiders.

ANote Music has raised €2 million from Seventure Partners, which led the round, ScaleFund and existing investors. The company plans to use the financing to expand the number of catalogues available, accelerate user acquisition across Europe and continue developing its platform and application.