Brief - The Hustle

Meet the LinkedIn of the music industry

Written by Trung T. Phan | Aug 16, 2021 8:33:36 AM

A lot of credits probably made in here (Source: Future Music Magazine / Getty Images)

We all know that the internet completely wrecked the music industry’s CD model.

But the rise of streaming also helped push the industry’s revenue to $21.6B in 2020, the highest take since 2002.

Not everyone is partaking in the good times, though.

In the pre-internet age…

… every key contributor to an album would receive a credit on the CD or vinyl jacket. Today, music streaming prominently highlights the featured artist, but other credits — songwriters, producers, musicians — may be neglected.

Those lost credits can lead to lost royalty revenue (no bueno).

This is the problem Jaxsta wants to solve

Founded by music industry vet Jacqui Louez Schoorl, the Australia-based startup is building the world’s leading database for music credits.

The company just launched its 1st paid product (Jaxsta Pro), which allows music industry professionals to set up an official profile and receive notifications any time a song they worked on charts.

“We have 160m+ official music credits from 1.2m record labels around the world,” Schoorl tells The Hustle. “With all that data, we see ourselves as the LinkedIn for the music industry.”

Another notable move

In the fall, Jaxsta received a $1m investment from Songtradr, an LA-based startup that provides revenue management for artists.

The partnership provides a full-stack solution for industry peeps to find and recover all the revenue they’re owed.

Sounds like good times!