How Matt Pincus Plans To Invest $200 Million Into Music Business

One of the most successful entrepreneurs in the music industry is, without question, Matt Pincus. He sold his independent music publishing company, SONGS, for $160 million five years ago. And now, the music holdings company he co-founded, MUSIC, just raised $200 million to invest in music and music-adjacent companies.

Though, Matt doesn’t see MUSIC as an investment fund, but rather a holding company. That’s because he’s taking an operator role in the companies he funds. And unlike the splashy catalog acquisitions that’ve dominated the space over the past few years, Matt is looking forward with his investments and targeting brand-new growth opportunities instead.

In particular, Matt sees big opportunities in the technology sector, web3, and even record labels and publishing. At SONGS, Matt was able to spot and develop up-and-coming songwriters, inking early deals with the likes of Diplo, Lorde, and The Weeknd. He’ll be tasked with finding similar success at MUSIC.

Matt and I dove deep into a wide-range of topics during our conversation. Here’s a few highlights of what we covered:

0:52 Why Matt created MUSIC
6:59 MUSIC’s investment thesis?
17:30 What Matt doesn’t like about the music business
19:15 Recent inflow of capital into the music business
22:43 Two lanes to entering music business
25:36 Finding left-of-center opportunities among musical talent
28:41 The structural problem of the music business
33:23 Continuity was key to SONGS success
35:46 The Weeknd as a business blueprint for other artists
40:10 Sync business opportunities
48:03 Have streaming subscriptions peaked?
53:03 Tiktok brought back music frequency
56:30 Matt’s five-year predictions

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