A Swedish start-up in the intersection of music, FinTech and gaming, developing a music stock exchange, Riteband will offer faster funding for music rights owners and innovative investment opportunities for everyone, from music lovers to institutional investors. Riteband creates a secondary market for music copyrights, and allows expectation values to be realised through trading. It also contributes to a sustainable future for creators of intangible rights in the digital era.
Let’s start with SxSW! You were one of 10 startups that were picked to pitch at the event. How did you get there?
By plane with a stopover in London. Jokes aside, we actually just applied at the last hour and then quite unexpectedly, they picked us! Our idea has great potential to make a difference in the way people value music today and we are happy that SxSW apparently understands that vision too.
“Communities develop around artist personas, shared opinions, humour and other forms of cultural expression", Linda Portnoff, CEO/co-founder of Riteband
Tell us more about the team behind Riteband and the biggest challenge you have experienced while building a company.
We are a bunch of nerds running this company, really. But like, cool nerds who are down with music. We have thought about things from so many angels that it sometimes is hard to scale down a pitch to the most essential since we find what we are doing so interesting that we tend to talk a lot in details. Knowing when to talk details and when to simply engage the person on the other side of the table has been a challenge for us. And of course, making ends meet, paying rent, sleeping enough, trying to stay sane and all those usual startup issues are part of our story as well. Something we don’t have the slightest problem with is celebrating stuff. We celebrate all the time. Mostly by eating popcorn at our office.
Stocks are not a term that everyone is confident with. Can you explain to us a bit more how does the stock market works?
In very simple words, the stock market is where investors meet to buy and sell investments. More known as stocks, which are shares of ownership in a public company. Riteband works in a similar way, but with songs instead of companies.
What does Riteband mean?
Rites are the name of our products that are built on music copyrights. Bands is slang word for money in some classic hip hop lyrics. It refers to the rubber bands that are used to corral large stacks of dollar bills. Riteband = Right money/money from music rights. Or, you can think of it as a way of financing the right band (according to your taste of course). Support your favourite band. Find the hit. Make money.
“This definitely belongs to the modern music industry's ecosystem”, Björn Ulvaeus, songwriter and member of ABBA
Where can we follow your journey?
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