Nas and The Chainsmokers Join $55M Raise in NFT Music Platform Royal

Read the full article by Jeff John Roberts here

Top celebrities and musicians have joined a $55 million fundraise in the up-and-coming NFT music platform Royal.

Key Points:

• Royal lets artist raise money from their fans through NFT sales

• Fans can be eligible for future royalties 

• Royal raised a $16M seed round early this year.

• NFTs(nonfungible tokens) are changing the way we play video games, interact with eachother, artist’s create music.

• The blockchain startup, helps artists create and sell NFTs but also provides the opportunity for fans to invest in an artist’s work and receive royalties in the future.

• Justin Blau AKA DJ 3lau launched Royal over the summer.

• Blau was also one of the first to launch NFTs with this concept in mind ,releasing 333 NFTs that represented 50% of streaming ownership in his new single. According to Royal, the experiment was a smashing success as tokens in the song are now worth over $6 million and have resulted in more than $600,000 worth of trades on the secondary market.

• "I wanted to prove the market for this existed. Until now, NFTs have just been collectibles," Blau told Decrypt, saying he distributed the 333 NFTs for free to fans, and that those who "invested with their attention" now own assets worth over $8,000.

• On Monday, Royal announced that it has raised $55 million, which comes on top of the $16 million seed round it pulled in August.

• Royal's investors include familiar names from blockchain finance, including Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, and Paradigm. But the new round also includes some celebrity cachet as musicians The Chainsmokers, Nas, and Logic & Kygo chose to back the project too.

• According to Blau, artists will be able to retain creative control over their songs even while sharing the financial proceeds with fans.

• "The value of music ownership is vastly misrepresented and undervalued today, but it won’t be for too much longer, as more musicians embrace the web3 ecosystem," Blau wrote in a recent blog post describing the emerging NFT era.